tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19731071874033531132024-03-19T03:54:10.426-07:00David Kurtz's Kuribbean Quest - From West Virginia to the West Indies with the Peace Corps<center>
(The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps)</center>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-50137348875266653312019-01-29T08:45:00.000-08:002019-02-02T04:42:01.299-08:0017 Months LaterI finished my service in the beautiful village of Thibaud (pronounced “tee-bow”), Dominica, near the end of August 2017. Unfortunately, just a few weeks after I departed, Tropical Storm Maria unexpectedly spun up to a Category 5 hurricane, and unleashed her fury on the little island. Dominica was devastated!
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I had promised my students before I left in August that I would return again in a few months to check up on them (and to escape the cold January weather). Despite the lack of electricity and running water after Hurricane Maria, I kept my promise and returned to my village for a couple of weeks last January (see the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2018/01/two-weeks-in-thibaud.html">previous story in my blog</a>). Before leaving in January 2018, I promised to come back in January 2019.
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As I prepared to make my return visit this year, I wondered how would it go, since 12 long months had elapsed from my last visit, and 17 months since I was living among them. Would I still be warmly received by the village? Would some of them even remember me? How would I do at remembering names and faces in the village? [During a lengthy layover on my way down in the San Juan, Puerto Rico airport, I drew up a little map and was able to place over 170 names of students and villagers in their approximate locations--it was good practice just prior to my arrival.]
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It turns out that there was no need to fear--the welcome I received was quite heartwarming! In fact, my return just happened to coincide with a special holiday party for the village children (orchestrated by some of the diaspora, and led by my former Kweyol teacher and Dominican radio personality, Felix Henderson, and his wife) that had been previously delayed, so the timing was perfect. I had brought a cannister of the glow bracelets that the children always enjoyed getting from me, so these glowing lights added to the holiday party as it got dark. Below is a picture taken with a bunch of the village children gathered around me at the party.
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Some of the locals explained that I need not worry about being welcomed in the village, because they don't consider me a visitor. Rather, I am more like a "cousin" who left the island (as is common on this relatively undeveloped island), but always comes back "home" to visit relatives. They consider me an honorary villager. I felt very honored!
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Besides visiting with as many people as possible, I also wanted to help out as much as possible while there. The first week, I focused on the school, and was able to do a little bit of teaching, plus fixing up the school library. The timing once again worked out well, because the new program director for the American charity “Hands Across The Sea” happened to be visiting Dominica and paid my school a visit. We had a wonderful chat, and had our picture taken with the principal and a couple of students on the school steps, with the beach behind us.
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By the way, the principal is retiring soon, and so the staff decided to do a retirement party for her while I was there. After school on my first Friday, we all climbed into a van and went down to the sulphur springs at Wotten Waven for a relaxing bath in the hot volcanic waters. We all had a great time!
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I also wanted to do some special activities for the 6th grade class while I was there. Sixth grade is a very crucial year for Dominican students, as they take an important assessment test near the end of the school year. So I arranged a 6th grade class trip during that first week. We took them to the chocolate factory in Calabishie, where they could see the cacao pods (just like the ones that grow wild near our village) processed and turned into delicious chocolate bars. As I had done on a previous 6th grade trip while I lived there, we next stopped at a bar near the airport, which has an airplane next to it (this plane was totaled because of flooding during Tropical Storm Erika, and is now just “decoration” for the bar). I like stopping there with the kids so that I can explain how an airplane works. They see them flying overhead, but this is the only place where they can see and touch one up close.
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We then went to the Kalinago Village, so that they could learn all about the original inhabitants of Dominica. It was very educational, and the cassava bread was a special treat. Finally, we ended up at a restaurant that has its own pool, where we swam before eating a delicious dinner (thanks, Poz!).
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On my first Saturday there, a bunch of kids and myself hiked over the ridge, heading to the mouth of the Blenhim River. We had hoped to replicate a similar hike a few years ago, when we collected bamboo and made some crude rafts to sail on the river. This time, we brought along some rope and a machete (known there as a cutlass). However, the undergrowth was too thick (a “growing” problem during this recovery from Maria) to get there the same way as we had previously, so instead of making it to the beach area, we contented ourselves with lashing together some bamboo we found along the roadside, and creating a small, one-person raft. Obviously, it would not hold me, but the children enjoyed paddling around on it.
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On my last Saturday, I arranged another shorter trip for the 6th graders. It rained off and on that day, so we started at the museum in Cabrits National Park, for more early history of the island. Then we swam at Purple Turtle Beach. While there, I got the idea to hire one of the local boats that serve as “taxis” for the visiting yachts. My students have often seen the boats that anchor in the harbor from the roads around Portsmouth, but I wanted to take them out into the harbor to see the boats (and the town) from a different perspective. Hopefully they will always remember the day we went out on the water in a little boat, to see all the yachts and bigger ships up close, such as the one below. We finished the day with a visit to the ice cream shop (where the owner remembered me!).
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I also made a trip to Portsmouth for some shopping, and rode with one of my favorite bus drivers from a neighboring town. While riding on his bus during my return trip, an elderly woman with a cane climbed up into the van. After he let her off in the town of Paix Bouche, he yelled back to ask me how old I thought she was. I guessed age 90, because it was obvious that she was elderly but she was still managing to get on and off his cramped van. He then shared that actually she was one of Dominica’s centenarians, and she currently is 102 years old. I was glad that he shared that fact with me--and I hope that I am as spry as she is if I live that long. [Dominica has the world’s highest percentage per capita of people living beyond 100 years old.]
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The good news is that Dominica is much greener than last January. You can still see the gray “skeletons” of large trees that were stripped of their smaller branches. Some are regenerating their own branches, while some of them are being overtaken with vines. Without the towering forest canopy to block the sunlight, vines, bushes, and other undergrowth are multiplying vociferously, as I alluded to earlier when discussing our raft trip hike. However, the lush greenery is a welcome sight. Plus, last year the color blue was prominent, thanks to all the tarps covering the roofs which had been blown away. This year, thankfully, I saw very few blue tarps. Here is a view of our village.
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Another major change is the electrical system. Last year, black cables were still down nearly everywhere, often even criss-crossing the roadways. Poles had sometimes been broken in half by the hurricane winds. Now the island’s electrical system is 99% back to normal. The water system is also restored, so I did not need to take my showers at “La Soose” (the village spring) or wash my clothes in the river this January.
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Besides the school, my other focus was with the village council. I enjoyed attending their monthly meeting while I was there, and it seemed just like old times again. I was able to restore the large “Bat Cave” sign which I had painted for them, but had been messed up by the hurricane. I also painted a few big signs for them about keeping the beach and the village clean. One morning I even assisted in tracking down an Excel formula problem in their budget spreadsheet (they are still using my 2012 Toshiba Satellite that I donated to them when I left--that laptop has a lot of miles on it, so I purchased them a new one).
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I spent the vast majority of my time within the village, visiting with old friends and trying to help the local economy by purchasing food and drink there (including pig snout soup). I was treated with a few dinner invites (which were delicious), and given some free food items, such as plantain, sugar cane, sorrel juice, coconut tablet, ginger wine, finger bananas, and even a rare (after Maria destroyed so many trees) sugar apple. It is amazing to me how quick the villagers are to share. Many Americans may see pictures of my village and think it looks impoverished, but I look at it and see how generous these people really are. My life has truly been enriched because of them.
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I was pleased to be able to sit in my old spot in the Catholic church again for two Sundays. The choir director even managed to sing my favorite hymn there for both services. The choir (and the congregation) can really sing this one well, and the words resonate with me.<BR>
<blockquote><i>Give thanks with a grateful heart<BR>
Give thanks to the Holy One<BR>
Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His Son<BR>
And now let the weak say, "I am strong"<BR>
Let the poor say, "I am rich"<BR>
Because of what the Lord has done for us<BR>
Give thanks</i></blockquote>
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I am very thankful that I was assigned to the village of Thibaud. It is a remote but beautiful location on the rugged Atlantic coastline. The people there are friendly and welcoming. It is small enough to get to know everybody, and one can truly make a difference there.
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Thibaud has a strong community spirit, which I first witnessed in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Erika shortly after my arrival in August 2015. While other towns awaited the government to come in with equipment to clear the many landslides, the Thibaud Village Council organized shovels, wheelbarrows, and volunteers to dig ourselves out. Another example of Thibaud’s community spirit is that it is one of the smallest villages that organizes its own Carnival celebration. Plus, the Dominican tradition of the annual Community Service Day always is strongly emphasized in Thibaud. [Below is another beautiful view of my village from the highest house in the village.]
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The bottom line is that Dominica is recovering from the direct hit it sustained from Hurricane Maria. As I discussed in my report of last year's visit, the Dominican people are very resilient. They are building back, both bigger and stronger than before. A good example of this is the Seventh Day Adventist Church at the northern end of Thibaud, which had been destroyed in the hurricane.
Instead of the wreckage that I saw last year, this year a new, larger church is under construction on the same site. There is hope for a new beginning in Dominica.
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I sincerely wish that another volunteer will be placed there in the next class this summer, to continue helping Thibaud to improve. To me, it is the perfect village! And I look forward to returning for another visit next year!
WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-46752303092576843972018-01-22T11:33:00.000-08:002018-03-05T07:53:56.770-08:00Two weeks in ThibaudWhen I was ending my two years in Thibaud (<i>pronounced the same as Tim Tebow</i>), I promised my students that I would return to see them in January. It made leaving them somewhat easier, and I knew that escaping winter's cold for a vacation in the Caribbean would be good. Little did I know in August what a different place I would return to in January!
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One month--to the day--after I left Dominica, the island was destroyed by a Category 5 hurricane. Dozens of people lost their lives, but fortunately none were killed or injured in Thibaud. Initially I had been very worried about them (see the blog story immediately prior to this one), but slowly I started to hear reports and eventually regained communications with some of my friends there.
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When I was sure that I would not be a burden on their food supply, I began making arrangements for a vacation. There was no electricity or running water yet in that part of the island, but I was prepared to deal with that. Besides, unlike many other villages, Thibaud is blessed with a great spring and plenty of river water!
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There were only seven passengers on the flight from San Juan, and I was pleased to see someone I knew on the plane (a Dominican who had been on a visit to Florida, where he had been surprised by the cold temperatures the state had suffered recently). I could tell as soon as the plane landed that while the greenery was returning slowly, the damages were still readily apparent. The trees on the ridges surrounding the airport were ravaged. Roof damages at the airport were evident, and even the "Welcome to Dominica" sign facing the tarmac was still not fully repaired. But they were trying to return to normalcy.
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Another immediate example of the damages from the hurricane was at the bar just outside the airport. After Tropical Storm Erika, a small Cessna 172 private plane had been ruined by the flooding, and was brought over as an outdoor decoration next to this bar. <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-four-falls-field-trip.html">During a trip with some of my school children, </a>I had made a stop there just so they could examine closely a real airplane--the first opportunity any of them had had to actually touch what they sometimes saw flying in the sky. Well, the plane was apparently anchored down well near the main wings and the cabin, but Maria had twisted off the tail, like a petulant child playing with a toy.
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The drive from the airport to Thibaud was somewhat sad. Dominica had been such a lush, tropical island (nicknamed the Nature Island), full of majestic greenery nearly everywhere, often blocking the view because the vegetation was so thick. Now, you can see much further, because the trees were stripped of their branches. I'm glad I didn't see it immediately after the storm, when everything was gray and brown. It was probably like the hardwood filled hillsides of my native West Virginia during the winter, when you can see throughout the temporarily barren forests. However, they never had experienced such a view in their year-round paradise.
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Now, driving from the airport allowed me to see much more than I had ever seen before. The ocean was often visible through the trees. In some ways, it was interesting to have the different perspective, but the cost to get it was too high. Another immediate change was seeing all the utility poles along the road. Few of them were still standing in their normal positions. Most were bent and many of the broken, resulting in the heavy black cables criss-crossing the road, with vehicles simply driving across the wires that now carry no current.
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In America, when a powerful storm knocks out utilities, I've often seen caravans of utility trucks from other providers in other regions heading towards the affected areas to help out with restoring services. Being a large country helps to make recovery much easier as resources can be temporarily shifted to the area in need. However, life on an island is much more difficult. There are only so many "bucket trucks" in Dominica, and it isn't easy to ship more here. Thus, it takes months to restore services island-wide.
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Upon arriving in the village on Saturday afternoon, I was greeted by a throng of my former school children, eager with hugs while insisting on helping to carry the heavy luggage up to my former home. They yelled so loud when they saw us that citizens living in the heights above the village wondered what all the commotion was about, until they looked down and saw that it was the kids screaming in excitement at my arrival. As someone who spent two years trying to improve their reading and writing skills, I was especially touched that many of them also wrote adorable “welcome back” notes for me.
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My landlord had my old house fixed up and it is good to be in familiar surroundings again. My Peace Corps replacement who had moved in to the house on August 19 as I moved out has been relocated to another island to continue her service, thus my old house was available to rent for two weeks. [Only a few Peace Corps Volunteers were allowed to return to Dominica, primarily because they live near the capital where utilities have been restored.] There is no electricity or running water in Thibaud yet, but I brought with us the necessary equipment (solar lights, flashlights, solar rechargers, LifeStraws, etc.) and food (Ramen noodles, tuna fish, etc.) to get through the two weeks.
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As a special treat on Saturday night, I had brought down three cannisters of the "glow bracelets" that I had sometimes given out to the children during my stay there. They had always been fascinated with the glow-in-the-dark light produced by the chemical reaction. As darkness arrived on the first night, it was quickly apparent that with no electric power, thus no streetlights, the village became really dark! However, that just made the kids enjoy the glow bracelets that much more! It was especially fun to watch them run up and down the streets with the bracelets around their ankles. I saved the remaining two cannisters to do one giveaway at the mid-way point of my visit, and also on my last night in the village. The children had a great time each night!
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Sunday was special for me as I attended church, and they sang my favorite hymn (“Give thanks with a grateful heart”) for me. I got to sit in the same seat where I had sat for two years. It was beautiful to be back again and listen to their wonderful singing. Fortunately, the Catholic church in Thibaud suffered only minor damages compared to most other buildings.
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After church, I was invited to a family home for dinner. It was an excellent meal, including dasheen (a local staple that grows underground), chicken, quiche, macaroni pie, and more. Here I was, less than 24 hours in the village, and the former school cook was sharing some of her families limited food supplies with me. They may not have much, but Dominicans are generous people! This was just one example of the good people there sharing stuff with us (e.g., my former host family provided me with dinner the second Sunday there).
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Monday required a trip to the capital of Roseau, so I could deposit some American money into my credit union account and withdraw some local currency. I also purchased groceries at the one major store in town that has reopened, plus reactivated my local phone number.
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The long trip to the capital let me see much more of the devastation from Hurricane Maria. The thick forests have been stripped bare. Once tall sturdy trees have lost their smaller branches, but they are beginning to come back to life, with patches of green re-emerging from the broken limbs. Sometimes the trees remind me of broccoli, because there are these thick, stout trunks, topped with a short crown of greenery.
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The road conditions are horrible even on the main road on the west coast. I had not realized that the essential Layou River Bridge had been damaged in the storm. It was constructed as two separate but adjacent bridges (one north bound and one south bound), but now traffic must take turns using the single span that it still viable.
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So many houses are covered with blue or gray tarps, having lost their roofs on the night of September 19. There is currently a shortage of roofing material to replace all the damaged ones, so it is hard to tell how long the island will be dotted with blue rooftops. Most of the tarps had the imprinted logos of UNICEF or Samaritan's Purse. Sometimes they need to be redone, as shown below.
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Most of the roofs were constructed of corrugated galvanized sheet metal, known simply as "galvanized." At several places along the main road, there are collection points for the twisted, broken pieces of galvanized that were scattered around by the storm. Hopefully these sad and unsightly metal mounds will be collected some day and removed from the island, perhaps to somewhere with a smelter so that they can be recycled.
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It was especially sad for me to see the two villages of Coulihaut and Coulibistrie, both on the Caribbean coast. These two villages were among the worst hit by flooding during Tropical Storm Erika, and I had gone with Thibaud church folks to serve them food shortly after that disaster (see the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-post-erika-post.html">second half of my previous story about Erika's aftermath</a>). This time, both villages were not just ravaged by the raging flood waters, but also devastated by the wind. It was sad to see the big Catholic church in Coulihaut with part of its roof missing.
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One of the most remarkable changes is the view from my porch. I used to love sitting out there and enjoying the view. However, after Maria tore down or stripped most of the trees, now I have a much different view. Most of the houses in the village were hidden by vegetation, but now I can see virtually every house. I have a much wider view of the Atlantic Ocean as well. It was good to be back on my porch again!
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As I was getting ready to leave back in August, one man in my village had thought I should buy his house, a very nice one on the hill along Back Street. It had all been just good natured bantering back and forth, but on my second day I walked up Back Street and he was in front of his house. I told him I had come to see what kind of discount price I could get on his damaged house now that it might be within my price range. In typical Dominica fashion, he was quick to reply that instead of going down, the price was instead going up. His house would soon have a new roof, making it even more valuable. Plus, after Maria stripped the trees, it now has an even more commanding view of the village and the ocean. I loved how he was making positives from a negative, which seems to be a typical trait in Thibaud.
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I spent a lot of time just listening to the stories of the villagers about what the late-forming, Category 5 hurricane was like, as well as their lives in the aftermath. It must have been horrible to go through as it pounded this island in the dark that night.
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Some of you may recall that <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/my-namesake.html">I wrote a story when I first arrived here about Hurricane David</a>. I was arriving in Washington, DC, for my senior semester as an intern for Congressman Rahall when the remnants of Hurricane David dumped lots of rain on the eastern seaboard. One of my “conversation starters” with older folks here was to ask them about their memories of Hurricane David. It had been the worst hurricane to ever strike Dominica, and they often had interesting recollections from that dreadful storm.
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Just to show you how bad Hurricane Maria was, I asked one woman to compare the two storms. Her reply now was simply “David was not a hurricane!” Similar replies came from other elders in the village. As bad as they previously thought Hurricane David was, it paled in comparison to what a huge Category 5 storm unleashed on this island.
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One man, his wife, and son hid under the bed when the roof started peeling off, and were fortunate when a big piece of galvanized crashed down next to (rather than on top of) where they were sheltering.
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One man shared with me how he and his wife huddled in the small end of hallway inside their house during the storm. Hurricane David had passed through in a brief amount of time, perhaps an hour or two, during daylight. However, Maria had struck after dark, and lingered over the island for many hours. He recalled how he would check his watch, and give his wife the time on every hour and every half hour. As the storm continued that night, he kept thinking that surely it would end soon, but every 30 minutes that he kept announcing the time, it still seemed to continue. It was a long and harrowing night for all!
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The people I talked with said the fact that the storm hit after dark probably helped to save some lives. Because of the darkness, people were more likely to hunker down and wait it out rather than try to make a run for other locations. Going outside was dangerous because of all the flying debris that was impossible to see at night.
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During the storm, trees and other debris collected under the Church Street bridge in Thibaud, diverting the river into the village itself. Water rolled down the Main Street, flooding houses and causing other damages, such as pushing down the fence around the credit union. On the other side of the bridge, the carpenter's shop (and all his equipment inside) was totally destroyed. Indeed, his nearby house was flooded, and had to put a chair up on top of his bed to avoid the floodwater that half-filled his house.
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One woman took me up to see her house in Uprising City. [This hill on one side of the village didn't get its name from some sort of civil insurrection. Rather, it is because of the spectacular view the homes on that hill have of the sun rising each morning.] Her house lost much of its roof, but she wanted me to see that she had had her Bible open on a nightstand in her bedroom, and although many other items were blown around when the roof flew off and the windows burst, her Bible had stayed right where she had left it. [Below is a view from her window.]
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There were many other stories about pushing furniture up against doors, trying to keep the wind from blowing them open. Others spoke about watching their normally rigid glass windows bowing and bending during the wind--some of them breaking but others somehow staying intact. The wind itself was also scary to listen to--it made all sorts of dreadful noises. Maria was talking to them all through the night, and she wasn't saying nice things!
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Perhaps the worst hit building was the Seventh Day Adventist Church, located at the very edge of the boundary for my village, way up on the hill along the road that loops around the north of the island. I explored the remains of this once beautiful church, which lost not only the roof but most of the side walls. As I walked around, I noticed a poignant reminder of the storm. Upside down and still wet from recent rains was a religious tract, whose story on the back page was entitled "After the Storm."
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Another example of the power of this hurricane was a tree near the church. This large tree had been snapped in half, flipped over, and embedded onto an adjacent tree. Also near the SDA church is the cellular phone tower that collapsed during the storm. A temporary replacement tower on a trailer has already been installed, but the remains of the original tower are still up there; dismantled but awaiting eventual pickup. It was amazing to see the strong steel girders for the tower twisted up like spaghetti.
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The children were eager to tell me about the two times that military helicopters (I'm not sure but the consensus seemed to be they were from the British military) had landed on the playing field. I can remember how unusual it was to even see a helicopter fly high overhead during my two years, so I can imagine how excited the boys must have been to see this somewhat alien craft hover around the village before coming to rest on their playing field and then deliver food supplies. It left a lasting impression on all of them (especially the small boy who was blown over by the wind blast from the chopper).
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The children were also eager to show me the new basketball court that "Courts for Kids" built before I left. Based on the aerial photographs I had seen after Hurricane Maria, I had assumed that the storm surge had carried a shipping container that had been being used for storage between the road and the sea, and deposited it on the court next to the health center. As it turned out, the storm surge had not been that big. Instead, it was simply the strength of the 160 MPH winds that had blown this shipping container all the way across the large playing field and up onto the court, breaking one of the backboards in the process. The kids are still playing half-court with the remaining backboard. [Notice how all the black paint on the left side of the pole is sandblasted away by the strong winds from the hurricane.]
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While I was there on our first Sunday afternoon, there was a distribution of boxes of supplies that had been gathered by a large group of former residents now living in Florida. They prepared enough boxes for each household living in the village, and shipped them in a large shipping container to the island. A large dump truck brought the boxes from the port to the center of the village, where the Village Council efficiently distributed them to everyone there.
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Although there were intermittent outages, during most of my two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thibaud I had electricity and water--although I chose to only use spring water for my drinking water. All drinking water had to be run though our official ceramic/charcoal water filters issued by the Peace Corps, so I opted to carry water down from the spring. During these two weeks, I was totally living without water or running water. Flushing the toilet required using buckets. Showering meant walking up <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/01/la-soose.html">to the spring</a> and showering in your swim trunks. I brought some collapsible five gallon water bladders with spigots that were very useful, especially for washing dishes.
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When it came time to do laundry towards the end, I couldn't do <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/02/bucket-laundry.html">my typical bucket laundry that I had done nearly every Saturday morning on my front porch</a>, using water from inside the house, while listening to the NPR news over my wifi. Instead, for the first time, I did my laundry in the river, in true, old-fashioned Dominica style. In hindsight, doing laundry in the river works pretty good! There are large stones for rubbing out the dirt, and the fast flowing water provides good rinsing action!
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In some respects, my two weeks in Thibaud without the usual conveniences were what some Peace Corps Volunteers have to face on a regular basis. I had felt a bit guilty that I had it as good as I did during my two years. In my mind, the Peace Corps should be sending even more volunteers to Dominica during this time of need. The good people of Dominica are surviving without electricity and water, so Americans should be serving right along side them. I think the fact that we went down there for our vacation helped to show some solidarity with the people of my village, which they appreciated. [The picture below shows one of my kids next to a water tank installed at the Village Council office from yet another charitable organization--the International Medical Corps.]
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Indeed, one of the things that this visit proved was just how STRONG and how RESILIENT the Dominican people truly are! If something knocks them down, they just get up, brush themselves off, and keep on going! I was amazed at how normal everything seemed to be in Thibaud. Indeed, walking up and down Main Street involved the same smiling faces, the same porch-side friendly conversations, the same "high fives" from my students as I had experienced during the previous two years. Of course, it was a bit different after dark, with no street lights. However, a few families and businesses had added small portable generators, which kept going through the night. Instead of just the tree frogs chirping throughout the night, the drone of generators was a new addition to the soundscape of the village.
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One of the things I accomplished while there was rehabilitating the school library (not all of which is shown in the photo above). I removed all the books, discarded the ones that were not salvagable, repaired the ones whose damages were not severe, and gave them all a quick rub down with isopropyl alcohol to clean them up and hopefully get rid of the musty smell. We also cleaned the walls and the shelving units with Chlorox before restacking the books in the proper categories. I am hopeful that Hands Across the Sea will be sending our school another shipment of books to help get it going again. Perhaps the biggest loss was the encyclopedias and other resource books--they now only have about half the volumes of the 2011 World Book Encyclopedia that (perhaps unlike American schools where the Internet is so prevalent) had frequently been used for classes (look close and you can see the remaining volumes in the lower right corner).
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I don't think I had ever previously wrote about "cab-aways," the toy trucks that are a tradition in Dominica. There had only been a few of them during my tenure in Thibaud, but I appreciated how they built these toy trucks pushed by a stick and steered with a wheel from the top of the stick. After the hurricane, with so much scrap wood suddenly available, cab-aways are making a big comeback. The children were often playing with them during our visit, as these photos of just two examples attest.
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I did some exploring with the kids, checking out some of the trails in the neighborhood. The bat cave trail suffered a landslide and some other damages, but is still passable. I'm grateful that the bridge survived, even if its railings did not (see picture below). The challenging climb to get up on L'islet, the peninsula that juts out into the ocean, splitting the two beaches in Thibaud, is still passable, although is now more difficult due to fallen trees. The trail from the spring to the highest house in the village is even more incredible now that the view is opened up by the lack of vegetation on the trees.
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The spring itself used to be such a remarkable place. It was in this narrow valley that was shaded by a large thick canopy of green. Indeed, it was like a cathedral of nature! Now, the greenery is trying to return, but it still has a long ways to go to be back where it was. In the meantime, I must admit I somewhat enjoyed the different view of looking up (while taking a shower under the cold, clear spring water) to see mainly beautiful blue sky, punctuated by the silver trunks of old banyan and palm trees, dotted with new greenery on the ends of stubby branches.
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I swam in the ocean a few times with the kids, which they thoroughly enjoyed. While walking back to the village after one of these swims, I got to meet someone I didn't know during my two years, but got to know after the storm over Facebook. Emerline Anselm is a teacher at the Portsmouth Secondary School, who has become a "citizen journalist" during her free time after the storm with her "Emonews" Facebook page. Her early reports on the situation in various locations was very important to those of us familiar with the island but located elsewhere (see some examples in my previous blog story, including how she used pictures from her notebook to get the word out to friends and relatives). I was very happy to meet her and to personally thank her for all her efforts.
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I also made a concerted effort to spend money in the village to help the local economy. I purchased something from every shop while there, spending a lot more money than I ever did on my limited Peace Corps budget. Food was generally available and I never had any problems during our stay. When I left, I even gave away some of the food I brought down, because I didn't need to use it.
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I also gave away most of my clothing, shoes, equipment, etc. I had done the same thing when I left in August, but this time I had fewer things to give away. It was a major project to decide who would get what, and then try to deliver those goods the morning before leaving. It was fun to see guys wearing my old shirts and stuff--I just wish I could have given away more. The only shirt I returned with was a treasured gift from my time there--my NCCU Thibaud Building Committee shirt.
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One of the major things I did while we were there was to distribute the "Toys for Thibaud." The church where my daughter and son-in-law attend in Uniontown, Pennsylvania (Asbury United Methodist), had decided to support my village by filling those large, ziplock, gallon sized plastic bags with toys and school supplies for the children of Thibaud. I purchased a large plastic shipping barrel from Grainger and arranged to send the barrel to Dominica. Once the church filled the barrel on Sunday, November 30, I transported it to a shipping company that sent it via truck to Miami. Then it was sent by airplane to the island of St. Martin. There, it was placed on a ship that eventually arrived at the port in Dominica.
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The barrel arrived in Thibaud on my last day (it was good to see it again after all that time), and I arranged for the school to walk the children over to the credit union at the end of the school day where we could have a more controlled distribution of the toy bags. The students lined up from youngest to oldest and then went in to the building to pick up their toy bag. They were all excited and happy to receive the gifts! It really provided a lot of joy for children who have been through some rough times, and whose Christmas was not as big this year. I had enough to give to more than just the primary school students--I also had enough to give to every child in the village, even to the youngest babies. I'm very grateful to my daughter's church for doing this!
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I should also mention that they included a bunch of mats that a woman in the church makes by crocheting plastic bags together. The principal and school teachers were happy to get these mats that will be used for a variety of purposes at the school.
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My last evening in Thibaud was special, and not just because of the final cannister of glow bracelets that the children love so much. I had one final special treat to share with the village. A friend of mine from college had purchased some paper balloons and shipped to me last spring, but for some reason they got lost in the mail and didn't arrive before I left. They finally arrived in the post office after the hurricane, and I was able to pick them up during this visit. I waited until the final night, and it was absolutely mesmerizing to watch these lightweight paper balloons, glowing from the heat source inside, lift off and float over the village and out over the ocean. Obviously, no one there had ever seen such a visual spectacle, and they were amazed. The lack of street lights made the light of the balloons even more noticeable. Plus, it provided a final science lesson for my young students, as they got to see for themselves that the molecules of hot air were lighter than the surrounding air, allowing the balloon to fly. [Thank you, Cathy, for sending the paper balloons!]
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There were some promising signs before I left. Domlec, the local electricity provider, finally began moving into our area. They dropped off some poles along the road,
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cut down a tree leaning on the existing wires,
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and began working to string new cable (notice the two workers high up on the pole in the picture below). At first, it will only be for street lighting, but eventual home electric service will return.
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Besides restoring water and electric, there are many problems still facing Dominicans. Necessary supplies to rebuild roofs and houses are in short supply. Roadways need repairs, as well as bridges. Tourism is an important source of revenue for the island, but it is going to be awhile before it really gets going again.
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Agriculture is another concern. Bananas, plantain, green figs, etc., all grow not on a hardwood tree, but on a plant stalk (a bit like a corn stalk), and were no match for 160 MPH winds. With the entire crop destroyed, farmers are cultivating new plants. However, throughout the island, all of the "banana trees" are approximately the same height, and just beginning to bear fruit. I worry about the economic market effects when all the farmers are trying to sell their first harvest from these trees. It might be hard for them if they all have trees getting harvested at the same time, resulting in a surplus in the marketplace and thus low prices for the sellers. In the old days, farmers would have different sized trees, with fruit becoming ready to harvest at different times. I'm no agricultural expert, but this is just one of the worries I have for Dominica as it struggles to recover.
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The best thing the Dominicans have going for them is their indefatigable spirit. They know life on the island isn't easy, but it is their home, and they will make the best of it. I had a memorable conversation with a bus driver from the next village over. I remembered that he also owned a boat and did some fishing on the side. I asked him about if his boat had survived. He just smiled his big grin and said no. All the boats moored in his village had been destroyed by the storm. But he was still smiling about it! As I mentioned earlier, Dominicans are STRONG and RESILIENT!
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It was hard to leave when the time came, because I had enjoyed myself so much living with the people of Thibaud. After running into someone I knew on the flight down, it turned out there was someone I knew on my return flight as well. Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerritt, was on our flight, and I was able to speak briefly with him (we had met several times during my two years there). I told him that sometimes from great tragedies arise great opportunities, and to continue working towards leading the country out of the mess that Maria had left. I also let him know what a wonderful time I had as onw of the first "tourists" in Thibaud, and that the people there were so wonderful to me. He seemed to appreciate hearing that. They have lots of work to do to get back to normal, but they are making progress. I hope it turns out well! I'm eager to see how much better things are the next time I visit, because I will be returning. I have to see my friends and check up on my kids there!WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-42621335745318838332017-09-27T16:20:00.000-07:002019-08-11T16:31:31.960-07:00MariaI left Dominica on Saturday afternoon, August 19, after an amazing 27 month term of service in the Peace Corps. I love the people in my village and the overall beauty of Dominica. I had survived <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/putting-up-with-erika_41.html">Tropical Storm Erika</a>, which had wrecked the island two years ago. Dominica was still recovering from that storm, with temporary Bailey Bridges and off-road detours still being used on the main road when I left.
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Little did I know that less than a month later, my wonderful island would be pummeled by a Category 5 hurricane. What had started as Tropical Storm Maria quickly spun up to the highest level hurricane in about 24 hours, leaving little time to prepare (or evacuate). It hit last Monday, and I still have not been able to contact my friends in the village of Thibaud. It took five days for telecommunications to be re-established to our isolated location after Erika, so I'm not surprised that it is taking more than twice that long after Maria. The first aerial photo I found of my village is shown above. Since communications are so difficult, one reporter has been allowing Dominicans to write brief notes to friends in her notebook, which she then takes photos of and posts online (an example is shown below) in an effort to provide connections to loved ones. This demonstrates how bad it is there--using pen and paper to get the word out.
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One of the conversation starters I used with older people in Dominica was to ask them their memories of <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/my-namesake.html">Hurricane David in 1979 (as described in this previous story)</a>. It appears that Hurricane Maria is much worse than Hurricane David. Unfortunately, I'm sure there will be plenty of stories coming out of this tragic event.
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So far, I've heard second hand stories that there were no deaths in Thibaud. However, aerial photos show lots of damage to buildings. The photo below is one example. The green circle at the left side shows the school. The blue circle shows my house. At the bottom right, you can see the dark hole in the rock cliff that is our bat cave.
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Below is another photo showing a closer view of the middle of the village. The green arrow points to the Catholic church. I can see that there was roof damage on my host family's house, where I spent my first month in the village.
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A couple of days ago, a boat from Guadeloupe made a delivery of supplies to the beach at Thibaud. Villagers waded out into the ocean to carry the supplies to shore, as shown in the picture below. That is the only outside help they have received (that I am aware of), and the villagers were obviously very grateful. Hopefully the village spring is providing enough clean water for everyone, as it did during the aftermath of Erika. I'm certain they lost most of their crops, except for root vegetables, but those will only last so long. I'm hoping they can work together and survive during these tough times. I have faith that they can, because Thibaud is a very special place. I can hardly wait to return someday.
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Some of you might be interested in reading the account written below by the Peace Corps Director for the Eastern Caribbean. She is based in St.Lucia, and tells the story of rescuing my Peace Corps colleagues (including my replacement), who had been "consolidated" into the Flamboyant Hotel in downtown Roseau (<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/09/bridge-adventures.html">as I had been during Tropical Storm Grace</a>). Had the storm come just one month earlier, I would have been caught up in it as well. Rather than copying the photos she references below, just imagine some of the worst pictures the news has shown of this tragedy. Here is her story (shared with her permission):
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<blockquote>
<i>These photos show Dominica - an island so beautiful, and then so destroyed when Hurricane Maria tore through on Monday, going from a Cat 1 to a Cat 5 in less than 24 hours, far outpacing any forecasts. The freakishly quick intensification of Maria that happened more rapidly than virtually any hurricane meant we could not get our Peace Corps Volunteers and visiting HQ staff off the island before the storm hit as no planes or boats were running, we could only watch in horror as the weather intensified so dramatically. We consolidated them in Roseau, and were able to be in touch with them through text and WhatsApp until 12:30 that night, along with two of our three Dominican staff, then the eye passed over and nothing. No communication coming out from anyone. Maria wiped out the island's communication system, leaving the rest of the world in the dark about the fate of Dominica.
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Our Volunteers and the two visiting staff from DC worked together, and with one amazing Dominican who was the manager at the hotel, to make it through the hurricane and 3 1/2 days in a building that was heavily damaged - though much less so than the other hotels nearby that lost entire roofs, all windows and were partially collapsed. They did a phenomenal job of making the best of a very tough situation, all the while so concerned about the families in their home communities. Thankfully they had the PC SAT phone with them - it was our lifeline to them.
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Peace Corps was determined to get our Volunteers out as soon as we could. We were able to contract private boats to take us to the island. My colleague and friend Christine S. and I arrived at the marina at 1AM on Thursday, boat captains searching for word on the seas between St. Lucia and Dominica, finally green light to go at 3:30AM, and we were on our way at 4:00.
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Eight hours later we approached the southern tip of Dominica - and what we saw broke our hearts. Trees tossed like matchsticks, the ones left standing completely devoid of foliage. The "Nature Island" stripped of its beautiful, beautiful natural habitat. Motoring up into Roseau we saw debris everywhere, landslides, houses without roofs, the main waterfront street every building impacted, stacks of uprooted trees on the shorelines, the vibrant fishing boats piled on each other, cruise ship pier destroyed, ferry terminal compromised, and swells in the ocean preventing us going ashore.
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Our Volunteers saw us come in to the area and immediately were in touch to ask for the plan. We had told them that would be devised once the boat captains could see firsthand the situation in Roseau. We told them what we were seeing - and they know the country so well, they steered us a bit further north to the main cargo port. Our local Associate Peace Corps Director came up huge for us - she was able to get to town and shuttle our Volunteers and their suitcases to the port. Meanwhile we were still searching for a way to find a place they could board the boat. And then came the news the gate to the port had been locked by police who had then left and told workers no one could get out to the port without going through Immigration - but no one was there from Immigration. What ensued was something out of a movie, with me demanding the boat to get up to the pier so I could climb on, running to see our Volunteers and local APCD and beginning to work with anyone on that pier to let them in, while Christine revved into fierce mode to stop the boat captains from leaving and heading back to St. Lucia without us. Eventually after SAT phones call with PC Washington and US Embassy Bridgetown - both so helpful in the crisis, especially the team in IAP PC HQ - and begging/cajoling/talking with finally someone who could make a difference, Christine pulling out all the stops to prevent the boat captains from leaving, and our Dominican APCD going to the police station - driving through checkpoints - talking to the Immigration guys, finally two of the kindest Immigration people I have ever met showed up at the port and treated us all like solid gold. We were able to get the Volunteers through by 3:45PM, shaving close to the 4PM curfew in place.
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Our Volunteers headed on the 1/2 mile or so walk down to the pier with such joy to be getting on the boats, and such sadness to be leaving Dominica in a state of massive destruction. I don't think there was a dry eye on either boat as we motored down the shoreline and slowly slipped away from the battered Dominican coastline into the open sea. Five hours later we pulled into St. Lucia.
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This experience is unlike any other in my life. The deep sadness to see a beloved place so changed by the force of nature, incredible gratitude to the Dominican hotel manager and local Peace Corps Associate Director for what they did in a time of natural disaster in their country for our Peace Corps Volunteers, fierce determination to get our Volunteers back to safety, deep respect for the resiliency of our PCVs in how they handled this unsettling to terrifying situation, thankfulness for "Thelma to my Louise" kick ass Christine, and a renewed faith in woman/mankind.
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We are working with our evacuated PCVs into this week and so I'm limited on my FB and any other time to talk or respond to messages of concern, but I wanted to share this as many of you have asked how we are after Maria.
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Holding Dominica in our hearts as they work to rebuild their beautiful country.</i></blockquote>
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Finally, on a lighter note, I thought I'd share this little parody song that some of the Peace Corps Volunteers created to describe their experience during Hurricane Maria. I think it gives you an idea of what they went through, and also their strong desire to return. [The acronym "HOR" stands for Home of Record, where all these PCVs have been sent until a decision is made as to whether they can return to Dominica or be sent to other islands.]
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"[Sing along to Toto's "Africa" to get a glimpse into surviving a Category 5 hurricane:]
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<b>
I hear Maria echo in the night<BR>
and she is making a real hot mess of this island<BR>
Making landfall 6:30 tonight<BR>
Powers gone but Bananagrams keeps me from going crazy<BR>
I brought my bags down just in time<BR>
for the windows to blow out all over the Flamboyant <BR>
Megan turned to me as if to say, “I left all my laundry on the line…”
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It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you<BR>
There’s nothing that a hurricane or two could ever do<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
First going back to HOR for 45 days<BR>
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Car alarms cry out in the night<BR>
as we get restless lying on some tables in the basement<BR>
I know we’re in for a long night<BR>
as sure as Waitikubuli rises above the Caribbean Sea<BR>
I seek to find a dry pillow, frightened of this thing beneath my head
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It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you<BR>
There’s nothing that a hurricane or two could ever do<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
First going back to HOR for 45 days
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PANFLUTE
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It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you<BR>
There’s nothing that hurricane or two could ever do<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
I’m going back to Dominica<BR>
First going back to HOR for 45 days</b>."WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-63778806636158381582017-08-16T12:48:00.000-07:002017-08-16T12:48:58.331-07:00One More Bat ChatAfter the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/07/courts-for-kids.html">Courts for Kids project</a> wrapped up, I was able to coordinate a visit to Thibaud by two bat scientists (one Canadian, one British). They had come to Dominica for the summer to work with a fascinating program for college students called <a href="http://opwall.com">Operation Wallacea (OpWall)</a>. The picture below shows them deftly using a net to capture one of the bats near the entrance to the cave. [By the way, new readers might want to see my previous articles about our bat cave by <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/05/inside-bat-cave.html">clicking here</a>.]
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After that first capture, they started working their way deeper into the cave. I should mention that bat caves aren't known for smelling good, due to the waste products that accumulate on the floor of their caves. [You can't see the face of the nearest scientist in the photo below due to the glare from her headlamp.]
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In the picture below, taken after I had come part-way into the cave, you can see one of the scientists near the back of the cave. The light from the other scientist (who is hidden behind large rocks) can be seen on the ceiling further ahead.
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They carefully handled the bats they captured for closer inspection.
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Here they examined the wing structure.
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In the photo below they were pointing out the nipple on the chest of this female, because bats are mammals just like humans.
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The scientists quickly recognized that there were two varieties of bats in the cave, with smaller bats nearer the opening and larger ones occupying the back. They told me the names of the two species, but I waited until I received the email below so that I could share the information properly (along with the links that were included).
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<i>"There were two species in the cave.
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The smaller one was Tadarida brasiliensis (commonly called the Brazilian Free-tailed Bat or the Mexican Free-tailed Bat), which eats mainly insects. They usually mate in March and it takes ~90 days to give birth.
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<a href="http://www.arkive.org/brazilian-free-tailed-bat/tadarida-brasiliensis/">http://www.arkive.org/brazilian-free-tailed-bat/tadarida-brasiliensis/</a>
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The larger species was Brachyphylla cavernarum (Antillean Fruit-eating bat), which mainly eats fruit but also eats insects and pollen. The reproductive cycle is not well known but estimated to give birth between late May and early June and young cannot not fly until two months old.
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<a href="http://www.arkive.org/antillean-fruit-eating-bat/brachyphylla-cavernarum/">http://www.arkive.org/antillean-fruit-eating-bat/brachyphylla-cavernarum/</a></i>
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The scientists were impressed with our bat cave, and with the new bat cave trail that was completed recently. However, they expressed hope that the easier access and resulting increase in human activity does not cause these two bat colonies to abandon this sea cave. They were particularly concerned with limiting access during the reproductive season, as mentioned in this part of the email message:
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<blockquote><i>"As for recommendations, I would highly recommend blocking off the path to the cave around the last corner to the cave so that people can’t go in there. As I mentioned it could cause stress to the bats, and it is particularly important that no one goes in there during the reproductive season. If females become too stressed when they are pregnant they can abort their fetuses, and when the young are born they can abandon them. So, I would build a barricade just around the last bend and perhaps put up a sign explaining why the barricade is there, and that is especially important during the reproductive season. Some people will likely not follow the rules, but usually if people understand why it is blocked off and have a sign to read about it they will respect it. They can still stand back and watch them emerge, and that is how I would sell the tourist part of it, as an emergence viewing not a cave exploration. As the reproductive season is not well known in the Antillean Fruit-eating bat, I would give a range on the sign for that (April to July) to be safe.
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I hope this helps and it was great to meet you and explore the cave. If I am back next year I will try to make it back to see how the colonies are doing."</i></blockquote>
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I do hope they come back next summer (even if I'm not here), and perhaps bring their students to my village for the day!
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Watching them explore the entire depths of the bat cave made me want to conquer it before my departure. Thus, I recently made my way into the cave (with some youngsters waiting outside for me), armed with headlamp and flashlight, and slowly worked my way to the back of the cave. There is a bit of a left hand turn near the back, so I had never known for sure how far back the cave went beyond what is visible from the front, but it turns out that it ends shortly after that turn. Here is a view towards the mouth of the cave from about half-way in.
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Near that point, I took this picture to show how far the water enters the cave. There were logs and other flotsam that the waves had pushed far back inside the cave.
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Here is a view looking back towards the mouth from the left turn just before the end of the cave.
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I'm glad I made the trek inside the cave, but it was smelly, slippery, and difficult to traverse. One time was enough for me, and I don't really recommend it for others. Plus, I didn't like disturbing the bats, many of whom were flying closely all around me (some even brushed against me). However, I'm content that I have now explored the entire cave—in addition to most everywhere around my village. It's been a great two years here!
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On an unrelated note, I thought I'd share this picture taken recently at the Dominican Broadcasting System, where I was part of a panel from the Peace Corps for a 90-minute radio show. From left to right is our Peace Corps Director for Dominica, the station manager and program host, a Peace Corps Volunteer from last year's class, a Peace Corps Trainee who will be sworn in soon, me, and a Peace Corps Volunteer who preceded me, but who extended for a third year. Thus, each of the four most recent classes of Peace Corps Volunteers on Dominica are represented in this picture.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmWnuzjlHQIZ01Ka8efqTjK04J4qyo04NzvPza_oF9JpTKlfIq4Bx42jy8AZ87te4LgxlH9CAuOVxh8sATD4X8F1RyMYbsZnEcb9a9y2tblefJOncENBT7jSgXrhQ642WZr8V_H1iYCOE/s1600/dbs.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmWnuzjlHQIZ01Ka8efqTjK04J4qyo04NzvPza_oF9JpTKlfIq4Bx42jy8AZ87te4LgxlH9CAuOVxh8sATD4X8F1RyMYbsZnEcb9a9y2tblefJOncENBT7jSgXrhQ642WZr8V_H1iYCOE/s320/dbs.JPG" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="480" /></a></div>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-54220559249405195542017-08-14T10:23:00.000-07:002017-08-14T10:23:59.126-07:00Leaving Isn't EasyIn the famous final episode of the “M*A*S*H” television show, B.J. Hunnicutt has a hard time saying the word “goodbye” to his friends. Despite Hawkeye's urging to say the word, he refuses. However, as a final farewell to his best friend, he spells out the dreaded word in rocks near the helicopter pad, so that it can be read by Hawkeye as he flies away. [By the way, a friend from college recently visited the site where the M*A*S*H series was filmed, which is now <a href="http://www.malibucreekstatepark.org/MASH.html">Malibu Creek State Park</a>—after seeing his pictures, I'd love to visit this site someday, too.]
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Just like Dr. Hunnicutt, I'm finding it hard to say goodbye to my village—especially to the children, who have become my de facto grandchildren. Most of my age peer group have grandchildren, and frequently talk about them. Not having any grandchildren myself, I didn't fully understand their fascination. However, after spending two years working closely with the children of the village (including younger siblings who aren't yet in school), these children have won my heart. I now have a far greater appreciation for my peers who are constantly going on about their grandkids. I will miss their hugs!
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This is just one of the many life lessons I have learned during my 27 month tour of duty with the Peace Corps. Below are nine more life lessons (in no particular order) that add up to my “Top Ten” list of what I learned while serving:
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2.) The more you give, the more you get! I knew this basic tenet before I left the USA, and tried to practice it, but I saw it in action more than ever down here. Call it karma or God's blessings or whatever, I constantly found myself the recipient of someone else's generosity, often when I least expected it. I also have to thank all of my friends, some of whom I haven't seen in many years, who donated to the Courts for Kids project, or mailed “care packages” to me, or who donated school supplies at my class reunion, or supported me in other ways. Whether it was as simple as mailing a bunch of fancy address labels that I could give to the children as stickers, or as sophisticated as donating airline miles towards my flight to attend the high school reunion, I can't thank you enough for helping me (and my village)!
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3.) I can't over-emphasize how welcome and appreciated I feel here. The folks in my village may not have much in comparison with Americans, but they have huge hearts. I am convinced that I am much safer living in my village than I will be when I return to America (with the growing drug-fueled crime wave). I feel in some ways as if I'm leaving Andy Griffith's Mayberry only to return to a divided, dysfunctional, and even dystopian America. As our president often tweets, “Sad.”
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4.) A positive attitude makes life much easier. Again, this is another belief I held prior to my arrival here, but I believe it was a key ingredient to whatever success I had here, and thus I hope to continue holding onto it. There is a restaurant in a touristy village on the Atlantic side of the island ran by a Canadian man. His nickname, and the name of his restaurant, is “POZ.” He got the nickname because of his positive attitude, and I hope to continue carrying a POZ attitude throughout the remainder of my life.
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5.) Americans tend to think they are the only ones who give foreign aid to needy countries around the world. Little do most Americans realize how much other countries (especially China) are providing. Besides China, I have seen signs around the island touting the involvement of Great Britain, France, Canada, Iceland, and others. Cuba provides many healthcare workers, and gives scholarships to Dominican students for higher education. Venezuela discounts oil to the islands. Heck, even the Mediterranean island of Malta, which is about half the size as Dominica (but Malta's population is more than six times greater that Dominica), donated the huge black plastic water tank on the roof of my school, so that when the public water system inexplicably cuts off, we can still flush the toilets and thus not need to cancel school. This list doesn't even include all the special assistance this island received <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-post-erika-post.html">after Tropical Storm Erika</a> from countries like Argentina and Barbados.
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6.) As a former WVU-P adjunct instructor (plus to a lesser extent my eight years on the Wood County School Board), I thought I had a little bit of an idea of what teaching was like. I will tell you that after two years here, I have a whole new appreciation for teachers of the early elementary grades, especially those trying to help children to learn to read. I found that personally, I much preferred teaching the older students than the younger ones. I love them all as my grandchildren, but there were times when they were quite a challenge in the classroom! [I forget where I copied the painting below of a Caribbean classroom, but I could certainly identify with the teacher on some days.]
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7.) Humans are humans, regardless of the amount of melanin in our skins. Having just spent two years as the only white person around, I have a renewed vigor about the equality of all humans—color doesn't matter. I wrote a <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/02/color-blindness.html">blog story to this effect</a>, but given recent events in America, it can't be stressed enough. Also, along the same lines, I will admit that I have a new found respect for the beauty of black women. One of the amazing high school students who came down to help build the playing court had started a club in her school called YPB, for Young Pretty and Black. Its purpose was to promote self-confidence and provide support to black females at her school. I want to tell all her club members that they indeed are beautiful, and they shouldn't allow America's overstoked media machine to let them think otherwise.
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8.) I'm surprised at how easy it has been for me to live here on the equivalent of $10,000 American dollars per year. I have a view of the ocean from my porch, and swim at the beach whenever I want, hike countless trails without worrying about snakes or ticks, and have plenty of good food to eat. Of course, there are many luxuries that I don't have (e.g., car, television, microwave, washer/dryer, dishwasher, blender) which many Americans could not live without. But for me, the simple life is the best life.
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9.) As a follow-up to the last point, I've learned how despite the fact that Americans have so much more stuff, I would venture that they are not as happy with their lives as most of the folks in my village. Americans have a wealth of choices, lots of luxuries, and countless opportunities, but many of them choose to complain and overlook the bounty that has been bestowed upon them by virtue of where they were born. Unfortunately, even the smartest students in my village have very limited options for them to achieve the success they would have had if they had simply been born in the United States. Americans should realize how good they have it.
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10.) One of the cultural traditions in the Caribbean is that everyone greets others with a “Good Morning” or a “Good Aftanoon” (as it tends to be pronounced here, where the “r” sound is often dropped) or “Good Night.” If you walk into a bakery, even if you don't know anyone in there, you proclaim “Good Morning” just to announce your presence. Likewise, if you are boarding a bus (van), you had best say “Good Morning” to your fellow passengers or you will be seen as someone without manners. It is a good habit that used to be done in rural areas like my beloved West Virginia, but it has evaporated over the years. I know some folks will think I am crazy, but I hope to try to continue this social practice when I return to the states.
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The bottom line is that serving in the Peace Corps has been one of the most significant things I have done in my entire life! I feel like I successfully crafted the perfect escape from a career in the bureacracy. It has been a great way to transition into retirement. I'm not exactly sure what the next chapter of my life will be like, but it will not be easy to beat the joy the last two years have given me.
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Plus, I was finally able to “repay” the Peace Corps for “having my back” during my law school years. If I had quit or flunked out of law school, I had planned to join the Peace Corps as a back-up plan (which I explained in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/02/im-joining-peace-corps.html">the very first story on this blog</a>). As it turned out, I didn't need to invoke that alternative plan, but I always appreciated the discussion I had held with a Peace Corps recruiter in the Mountainlair (WVU's Student Union). They were ready to pick me up if I had fallen down, so it felt good to finally help them out after all these years.
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Also, I trust that by serving 800 days in “his” Peace Corps, I've finally paid a personal debt to the late President Kennedy. As I explained in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/03/kennedy-and-me.html">the second article I wrote for this blog</a>, one of my vivid memories of the aftermath of his assassination was that I wasn't able to watch the cartoons I enjoyed at that age. Perhaps now I don't need to feel bad about that anymore.
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Thus, in closing, I'm glad I took the plunge (<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/07/exploring-undersea-world-of-jacques.html">click here to read the story of the picture above</a>), and feel blessed that I was assigned to Dominica. I'm able to depart from this beautiful place content with the feeling that I am leaving it in a better situation than it was in when I first arrived. It has been a wonderful experience and I will be returning over the years—I need to come back to check up on my grandchildren!WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-78876190805160199082017-08-09T06:38:00.000-07:002017-08-09T06:38:18.840-07:00New School!In my waning days in Dominica, I'm feeling good about closing various “chapters in the book” of my service here. I'm thrilled with how the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/07/courts-for-kids.html">Courts for Kids project</a> went, as the court (and the new soccer goals) are getting used a lot each day (thanks especially to those of you who donated towards this project).
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The <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-village-feast.html">annual Village Feast</a> (which requires a lot of hard work to produce) ended Monday night. This year's celebration saw us go from an emotional high of a very successful Saturday night, to an emotional low with the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-tragic-feast.html">tragic deaths of five young men when their car plunged over a 400 foot cliff</a>. No one was in the mood to celebrate the final two nights, so the decision was made to not charge admission (thus negating my job selling tickets from behind the burglar bars at the school). Indeed, the sadness still lingers on in this tight-knit community. Hopefully the final numbers will at least allow the Village Council to break even on the finances of this year's event. [The nearby village of Penville, home of the five who died, made the decision to completely cancel their upcoming village feast out of respect to the deceased.]
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Yesterday, I was able to participate in a meeting that hopefully will lead to the closure of another chapter of my experience here. Eight years ago, the decrepit old school building in my village was closed and demolished, and a nearby community building (originally built primarily as locker rooms for sports teams competing on the adjacent playing field) was temporarily converted into a makeshift school building. When this decision was originally made, it was thought to be a one-year, temporary quarters until the new replacement school could be constructed. No one dreamed that we would still be crammed into this little building eight years later! However, various competing government needs (including <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/putting-up-with-erika_41.html">Tropical Storm Erika</a> recovery) kept pushing our project onto the back burner. Nonetheless, the staff of <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-state-of-school.html">our school has worked hard</a> to overcome these difficult conditions.
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Now, with less than two weeks remaining, I was able to get a glimpse of the future school planned for my village. A public presentation was made at the current school yesterday afternoon. It included the Minister of Education and about half a dozen top officials from the Ministry of Education. It also included a couple of architects from the Ministry of Public Works. They laid out the plans they have developed for the new, two story, reinforced concrete school that will built upon the site of the original school (located at the base of a hill adjacent to our beautiful playing field).
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The new classrooms on the upper floor will be double the size of the current classrooms. As with other new schools the government has been building in recent years, an early childhood learning facility (pre-school) will be added on the lower floor. An indoor cafeteria is included, along with a modern kitchen. A library and a technology lab, which potentially can house as many as 20 computers, will also be built. It all looks beautiful!
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I've interspersed in this story some of the architectural drawings that were shown yesterday. There were a few “tweaks” that were discussed in yesterday's dialog between the officials and the locals. Personally, I am interested in seeing how the retaining wall around the edge of the playing field might be used for spectator seating at sporting events held there. I also hope that the clear water spring that emerges on the hillside between the school and the health center might be enhanced for usage during water outages.
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The officials will take the feedback they received yesterday and make some minor changes. Then they will work on getting the project tender ready to go out for bidding. That will take several months, and once the project is announced, the procurement process will take several more months. Hopefully before the end of the upcoming school year, construction will finally begin on this long overdue school. It will be an important component to the overall health and vitality of our village.
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I'm looking forward to someday coming back and roaming the rooms that I first visualized in these drawings. It makes it easier for me to leave knowing that good things are happening for my school and my village!WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-13502287669385757842017-08-06T15:53:00.000-07:002017-08-06T15:53:35.226-07:00A Tragic FeastI'm usually not a “night owl” type of person. However, this past Saturday night/Sunday morning, I didn't get home until after 4:00 AM (nearly as late as the previous night). The only reason I'm staying up to such late hours in the night is because this is our annual “<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-village-feast.html">Village Feast</a>.”
<P>
Months of planning and hard work culminates in a massive holiday weekend party on the beach. I'm in charge of selling wrist band tickets from the safety of our school building, with its burglar bars protecting the front porch. A couple of us lock ourselves in, accept the admission money through the bars, and affix the designated color wristband for that evening. Dominican parties such as the village feast continue long into the night.
<P>
So after falling asleep at around 4:30, I was awakened this morning by an incoming text from the school principal. She was alerting us to the tragic deaths of five young men, including a sports teacher who often came to our school. My Facebook feed was soon filled with my Dominican friends expressing shock and sadness over this tragedy.
<P>
It wasn't just Facebook where this sadness was evident. One of my students stopped by my house to tell me about this graphic details. The car had hurdled off one of the most precarious cliffs along the main road around the north of the island, crashing into the edge of the ocean far below.
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Many pictures from the crash site were appearing on social media. [I got the pictures above and below this paragraph from <a href="http://dominicanewsonline.com/news/homepage/news/accidents-tragedy/pm-skerrit-expresses-sadness-over-vieille-case-accident/">Dominica News Online</a>.] With the prevalence of cell phone cameras, that seems to be a common happening down here (even on St. Lucia when I was there for training). Apparently some of the grisly crash scene pictures were also circulating, but thankfully none of my friends had posted them—only their written reactions to those horrifying pictures.
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I have written about this particular cliff (<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/06/bwa-nef-waterfall-hike.html">and overlook</a>) where the wreck occurred in the past. In fact, just two weeks ago, it had been included as a stop for the tour bus carrying the 23 American volunteers who had come to Dominica with the Courts for kids project. I couldn't help but remember how these Americans had marveled at the view from that overlook, which now had claimed five promising young lives.
<P>
Indeed, all five of these men had attended our village feast that night—I may have sold them their tickets to enter. I may not have really known them, but I probably had crossed paths with all of them during my years here. For example, one was a government health inspector, and I had attended the food handler training session he had given prior to the village feast for the vendors who sell food at the event.
<P>
More importantly, although none lived in my village, there is such a small population here that it seems that everyone is somehow related to everyone else. Many of the good folks living in my village lost friends or relatives in this deadly crash. Five new holes will be <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/05/death-in-dominica.html">dug by hand in the uneven ground of the cemetery</a>. Today there was a pall hanging over the village. You knew that this sad news was on everybody's mind. But the feast will go on tonight. Life goes on.
<P>
Life is so tenuous; you never know when it might end—and life can be hard living on this volcanic rock jutting up from the ocean. All that one can do is to try to make the most of the time we are given. That is one reason why I joined the Peace Corps, and it has paid off for me. As my term of service comes to an end, I am grateful that I undertook this life-changing experience.
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P.S. I'm happy to report that the half-court line and the foul lines were painted on the court today (look close and you might be able to make out the green lines on the new court). The concrete has had time to cure, so I'm glad that at least these minimally required lines were completed. I'm indebted to a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer who came to help with the village feast and to give me a hand with the final touches on the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/07/courts-for-kids.html">Courts for Kids</a> project.
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WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-16420285982832351992017-08-03T10:31:00.001-07:002017-08-03T10:31:46.491-07:00The State of the School<blockquote><B><i>This blog post is different than most, and may not be of interest to everyone. However, some of my friends involved in the field of education might enjoy this.
<P>
During my first year, our school did not have any sixth graders, so we didn't have a graduation ceremony. This year, we did have a 6th grade class, so I got to experience my first primary school graduation ceremony in Dominica. A big part of the program was a speech given by the Principal, reviewing the school year—sort of a “State of the Union” speech about the school for the large audience of parents, family members, and others. She agreed to share her speech with me as long as I removed some specific reference to student names (plus I made a few other very minor changes to make it more readable by Americans).
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This speech provides some insights into the education system down here. There is a huge emphasis on the Grade 6 National Assessment, and when the results are announced, it is covered by all the media outlets. A radio was brought to school that day so that we could listen for the results.
<P>
While none of our students won scholarships based on their test results, we did get some good news based on this and other testing. Our school is no longer “on probation” (resulting in an asterisk beside the school name, which she references towards the end of her speech) for low test scores! That was considered a major victory, as she describes below.
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Thus, I provide this speech as a good review of my last year working at my school. It was the best job I've ever had! As an added bonus, I'm throwing in a picture of my new hairstyle (at least for awhile). Now the back of my head really is my best side!
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</blockquote>
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</b></i>
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<B><center>PRINCIPAL’S REPORT 2017</B><br></center>
<P><i>
"The heights that great men reached and kept<br>
Were not attained by sudden flight <br>
But they while their companion slept<br>
Were toiling upward in the night."<br></i>
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
<P>
Indeed, this has been the mode of the journey for us as a school in the 2016-2017 school year, and before that! We have toiled and we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we will reach the heights for which we yearn!
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The Thibaud Primary School started the 2016-2017 school year on September 1. Staff engaged in a two-day planning session during which we looked at (1.) “The Qualities of a Good Teacher,” and (2.) “Teacher Behaviour,” among other things.
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There was, as usual, that famous pattern of change of staff—a situation that seems to be part of the school life at Thibaud Primary. Staffing was as follows:
<P><i>
<blockquote>Jacintha Marcellin (Principal) <br>
Miss Nicaela Thomas <br>
Miss Christina Poponne <br></blockquote>
<P></i>
The term started with two teachers and a principal. Miss O'Brien did not report. Forming part of the teaching team, however, were Miss Tara Joseph, a Teacher’s College trainee, and Mr. David Kurtz, who was on his second year as Peace Corps volunteer.
<P>
Students reported for classes on September 5, 2017 with 27 boys and 7 girls. Miss Nicaela Thomas was assigned to Grade 5 and 6 and Miss Poponne to Grade 4 and 5. Miss Poponne, however, held Grade 1 and K until a replacement for Miss O’Brien arrived. The Principal decided to work with Grade 3 while Miss Joseph assisted with Grade 4 and 5.
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On Monday September 12, 2016, Miss Jewel Honore joined the staff as a substitute for Miss O’Brien and was assigned to K and 1 while Miss Poponne took up Grades 4 and 5. On the 23rd of September, 2016, Mr. Darnil Pierre-Louis joined the Thibaud Primary School as an additional member of staff. My request for an added teacher had received a positive response! Doctor Jeffery Blaize, Acting Chief Education Officer, must be thanked for his support and consideration. Thibaud Primary School could better share the work load having four teachers instead of three. Mr. Pierre-Louis was assigned to Grade 3.
<P>
Workshops, sporting activities and in particular ill-health among staff continued to affect classroom instruction and school management as was in previous years. None-the-less, every effort was made to provide pupils with quality instruction and quality time!
<P>
<P>
SPECIAL ACTIVITIES<p>
TERM 1<br>
In Term 1, our school participated in the National Youth Rally as well as the Northern Youth Rally planned by the Portsmouth Town Council. Students presented themselves well. Students also participated in the Independence Athletics Meet. Students were able to secure first and second places. Our school also observed <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/11/looking-great-at-38-dominica.html">Creole Day with the usual Creole Lunch and Creole activities</a>.
<P>
<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-best-day-so-far.html">Community Day of Service</a> was a First Term Highlight! School embarked upon some landscaping and yard beautification. The major project of the day, however, was the mounting of lunch benches that were sponsored by the National Cooperative Credit Union—NCCU. Forming part of the work crew was a team of 15 American college students from the Sea-mester program which had stopped in Portsmouth for the day. These students worked tete-a-tete with school, mounting the tables, scrubbing the pavements and painting tyres! The American students were treated with a buffet style lunch of breadfruit and salt fish, vegetable salad, and fruits while coconut jelly was an added treat. It was amazing to see the college boys attempt to break coconuts.
<P>
Also on Community Day of Service, Thibaud Primary was also favoured with the presence of the United States Ambassador and two other officials. One of our girls dressed in our national wear had the privilege of presenting the Ambassador with a gift, and sharing a photo-taking moment with her! It was a memorable occasion indeed!
<P>
Permit me to highlight the efforts of Miss Nicaela Thomas and Miss Tara Joseph, as well as Cindy Letang and Mr. Paul for their tremendous contribution towards the success of the day. The ladies, in particular, worked tirelessly in the kitchen. Of course none of these would most likely have happened had it not been for the influence of Mr. David Kurtz, our friend and Peace Corps Volunteer.
<P>
In November we received reading books and other teaching and learning resources from Hands-across-the Sea and from friends of Mr. Kurtz. Through Mr. Kurtz’s effort our school has been made richer and more self-reliant!
<P>
Also in November we held our first ever <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/11/book-fair.html">Book Fair</a>. This was spearheaded by David. Parental support was lacking. However, a few parents (the usual) came to visit the fair. Thank You for your support. Forming a special part of the Book Fair were Mrs. Catherine Francois, our PTA President, and Mrs. Deborah Fabien who came to read to the pupils.
<P>
TERM 2<br>
School reopened for Second Term on January 7, 2017. Dr. Jeffery Blaize, Acting Chief Education Officer and Miss Bernette of the Ministry of Education, facilitated a workshop on “Roles and Responsibilities of Teachers and Principals.” It was timely, informative, and meaningful. Miss Bernette expressed deep pleasure for being at Thibaud Primary and described our school as quote “It’s homey here!” unquote.
<P>
School officially opened for students on Monday, January 9, 2017. Staff remained unchanged. School plunged into teaching and learning immediately. On January 12, 2017, we were once again <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-ambassador-returns.html">visited by the U.S Ambassador</a>. She actually spent about 15 minutes reading aloud to the students. She presented us with four reading books.
<P>
In February our boys participated in the North-Eastern District Football Festival, looking great in their new football uniforms. Thibaud Primary made it to the semi-finals and losing only to Calibishie in the finals. Later in the school year, five of our footballers were selected to form part of the District Team. The North-Eastern District won the tournament. Mr. Sango had this to say: “Your boys made me proud!”
<P>
During the month of March, another team of American students with the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-second-sea-mester.html">Sea-mester sailing program</a> came to visit us. Much could not be done due to rain, but it was a well-spent day. Some of the students assisted in writing sight words on the school wall while others spent time with the students.
<P>
On March 13, school observed Commonwealth Day. Every class presented on a selected Commonwealth country. It was a meaningful and learning exercise.
<P>
On March 15, school participated in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/03/an-epic-battle.html">French Spelling Bee</a> and placed 2nd among eight schools, losing by one word. We owe this performance to <name of the student> who presented herself excellently.
Our four Grade 6 students were privileged to go on a sailing trip along the Cabrits-Toucari coastline. From all reports it was a memorable experience. Students were given the opportunity to learn marine science, get a feel of sailing, and have fun. Thanks again to Mr. Kurtz and <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-mission-trip.html">his American friends, the Howard</a>s.
<P>
School also observed Math Week. The week was a bit low keyed but students were engaged in Math games on the last day of the Math Week. It was a fun, as well as learning exercise.
<P>
TERM 3<br>
Term 3 opened as before with teachers experiencing ill-health. The days seem to fly! None-the-less, as a staff we worked hard to do what was necessary to help our students experience success. School engaged in several activities such as district netball and cricket festivals, and joined the local health team in an <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/05/marching-again.html">Immunization March</a>. There were field trips and other in-school activities. The term was a packed and demanding one.
<P>
ASSESSMENTS <br>
It was a year of the usual assessments and competitions. During the months of October students of Grade 3 did the Grade 2 National Assessments while Grade 5 did the Grade 4 National Assessments. Students were tested in Mathematics, Reading, Writing and Speaking. A few students of Grade 5 performed at the A level in Reading and Writing but the Grade 3 results remain a major concern! There is a great deal of work to do. Students must learn to read and write at the A level.
<P>
On May 25 and 26 four of our students sat the G6NA. (This will be highlighted later.)
<P>
Students of K and 1 did the CBM – that is Curriculum Base Measurement. It is an assessment that tests students in areas of Mathematics and Reading measuring how quickly and accurately they count, say letter sounds, recognize letters of the alphabet, and read simple passages. We will know how our students performed in the new school year.
<P>
School engaged in several activities such as 4H Festival under the leadership of Miss Honore. We placed 1st in the 4H / Agriculture Quiz and 2nd in the Public Speaking Competition. It was an ego- boosting performance.
<P>
The Thibaud Primary School continues to maintain a school feeding programme. There is a House system in operation and an active <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/05/4-h.html">4H Club</a>. With the help of Mr. Bernard Bontiff we were able to harvest lettuce which was used in our school kitchen.
<P>
GRADE 6 NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS<br>
Results of the G6NA were not what we had expected and worked towards. We waited eagerly for the results but when the results came we were truly disappointed, not necessarily in our students or ourselves as teachers but in the fact that our hard work seemed not enough!
<P>
In 2014, our theme was “Preparing for the Harvest,” in 2015, “Making Every Obstacle a Launching Pad for Success.” In 2016, “Staying Focused: Looking Straight Ahead.” Today we celebrate the 2016-2017 school year and look forward to the 2017-2018 school year under the theme, “Realizing Dreams and Aspiration Despite Difficulties.” We did not get the Bursaries or Scholarships for which we yearned and towards which we worked so hard, but we have achieved something of which we should be proud. From 2011 and maybe before that and up to 2015, the Thibaud Primary Schools has had one or two asterisks place after the ‘l’. We hated to see it for it was another way of saying ‘Poorly Done!’ For five years in a row we saw these *. Today they are not there. This was one of our aspirations!
<P>
The * is placed by schools with 30% of students receiving 85% or less. Our average score was 97%. It should have been much better still but we are proud that we have removed the asterisks. Our students got scores in Science and Social Studies that helped us rise above the national average. Hats off to them!
<P>
Today as a school we do not bow our head in shame, nor walk with shoulders stooped. We may have felt disappointed but we are not deflated. We are not discouraged. We have work to do and next year is going to be better than before.
<P>
As the apostle Paul stated in Philippians 3, verse 13-14 “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
<P>
Indeed it is a waste of time and energy to cry over what should have been. There is work to do! Let us as a school continue pressing towards success no matter how difficult the journey!
<P>
TO THE PARENTS AND COMMUNITY<br>
The teachers alone cannot make it happen. The Thibaud Primary School needs your support. If you listened to the Press Conference when results were released you must have heard the Chief. Parental support is very important to student success. The students need homes to which they can go for help, parents who take time to work with them or seek help for them. Primary grade students cannot make it on their own! Today I want to challenge you (parents and villagers) to change your approach to your child’s education and change your attitude toward the Thibaud Primary School. Be positive! Be supportive!WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-74847954274154390672017-07-31T13:58:00.000-07:002017-08-04T08:25:30.663-07:00Courts for KidsNearly a year ago, I first learned of an American charity called “Courts for Kids” (CFK). We probably need new bridges, road repairs, or other items in my village worse than we needed a basketball court, but after talking with some Village Council members, I decided to put in an application and see what happened. [The photo below was taken during our lobster dinner explained further below, but I wanted to begin by showing off my shirt for the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps first coming to Dominica.]
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To my surprise, this charity liked the application I sent, and wanted to work with us. They provide $5000 US dollars (about $13,500 Eastern Caribbean dollars, which will be used for the remainder of this story), which is about half the cost to build a court (thus local money must be raised to cover the costs, but assistance can also come from donations to the project by American friends). Plus, CFK provides the revenue for feeding, lodging, and transporting (once they reach the island) a group of volunteers that they assemble and send down for a week. The volunteers (often school or employee groups) live in the village and eat what residents eat (including local delicacies such as pig snout and sea snails)—in essence they sign up for a no-frills working vacation in order to experience another culture. Building a big concrete slab is a project that doesn't require a lot of construction expertise, but does require labor. The CFK concept is a brilliant way to bring Americans into contact with the people in developing countries, and ends up being somewhat like a one week Peace Corps experience.
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A lot of work and planning went into our project. The total amount of money from CFK was about $27,500 EC. I solicited funds for the remainder of our construction costs from a variety of sources, and thankfully a few responded. Many of my friends made contributions to CFK (I appreciate what you did so much!), which added another $5000 EC. The government of Dominica kicked in $9000 EC to support us. The National Cooperative Credit Union (NCCU) gave $500 EC, plus provided us with their distinctive blue and gold paint (which resulted in their initials being added to the backboards). NCCU also loaned us fans and water dispensers for the week. The Peace Corps let me use a few extra water filters for the week, too. The Office of Disaster Management permitted us to borrow cots, plus the Sports Ministry allowed us to borrow mattresses for the week. Many of the villagers donated food, as only a few could donate any cash. When you consider the money spent on the island by the work team (some of whom vacationed on either side of our work week), this project was approaching a $50,000 impact.
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But there were other factors far more important than the financial impact. First, this will be a nice enhancement for the community. Not only will school children (and other villagers) be able to play basketball there, we also set it up so that netball, tennis, and volleyball can also be played on the court. Since we never had a playing court in the past, it will bring a big improvement to the sports skills of those who use it. Plus, to further broaden the appeal to villagers, we also used this project to enhance our football (soccer) field with new goals and nets, which were badly needed.
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The court will also provide a setting for outdoor events such as the annual Ross University health fair and the village council inauguration ceremonies, which previously were held under temporary tents on the grounds of the playing field (which became muddy if it rained). There is already talk of holding concerts and dances there. I'm sure there will be other uses over the years ahead.
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However, the court itself is not what is important with this project. The true essence of this amazing collaboration is that 23 Americans flew to Dominica to live in a local village, rather than in a nice hotel. They worked alongside the community members to build this court. They interacted with them, learned how they live, ate what the typical resident eats, and realized what an incredible place this truly is. My village welcomed them with open arms, and the love was quickly reciprocated. It was beautiful to see. Many lives were touched.
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Not only did the love grow between my village and the volunteer group, but it was also interesting to see this diverse group of volunteers bond together. There were nine students plus a teacher from Xavier High School in Appleton, Wisconsin. Two other classmates from a school in Portland, Oregon, met a mother and her high school aged daughter from nearby Vancouver, Washington (located across the state border from Portland, Oregon) at the airport, and the four quickly became friends. There were seven employees from Kaiser Permanente health organization, some of whom had participated in previous CFK projects (see them in their matching shirts below). Finally, to bring the total to 23, there was a young woman and her boyfriend (a civil engineer) who served as the representatives for the CFK organization. She had been a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic and had won a CFK grant for her community a few years ago. These two especially were an immense help to me.
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It all got started on Saturday, July 15, when the two CFK representatives arrived. They came early and stayed in Roseau to explore the southern end of the island before the work started, but I went with them from the airport to Roseau so we could strategize. Then on Thursday, a couple of the workers came a bit early to explore. Finally, on Friday, July 21, the bulk of the crew arrived. [Unfortunately, a couple of the suitcases did not make it on their flight, and those affected had to wait until the next day.] Upon arrival, they moved into the two “dorms.” The boys lived in the old pre-school building, while the girls lived in the new pre-school (which are directly across the river from each other and easily accessible.
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Their first work day was July 22. Some helped with setting up the worksite, while others worked on a beach cleanup. We also gave them an orientation to the village, taking them to <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/05/inside-bat-cave.html">the bat cave</a>, <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/10/lislette.html">l'islette</a>, and <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/01/la-soose.html">the spring</a>. We also demonstrated how to cross the narrow I-beam bridge across the river (shown above). It was a day for most of these strangers to get to know each other better. At dinner that night, they were treated by a concert by the Paix Bouche Drummers, a cultural group from a neighboring community.
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Sunday morning they attended the Catholic church service, and were very impressed with the Caribbean style music. After a delicious brunch, they loaded onto the large bus, and got a tour of the northern part of the island. We drove through the neighboring town of Vieille Case, checking out the church and the Prime Minister's home. We stopped at an overlook that provided a view of one of the locations used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Then we hiked up to the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/06/bwa-nef-waterfall-hike.html">Bwa Nef waterfall</a>. They had a good time in the falls, and marveled at the two boulders that precariously straddle the walls above the waterfall.
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The bus then drove through Penville before starting up a long, long hill, before finally crossing over the lip on an old volcano crater. Once inside the crater, we visited the Cold Soufriere, where sulfuric gases still bubble up inside this dormant volcano. The students, who were amazed at the road up the slope of the crater, nicknamed our driver “Mr. Frizzle”--after the teacher in the popular “Magic School Bus” books.
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After the Cold Soufriere, we drove to <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/killer-trees-in-cabrits.html">Cabrits National Park</a> (shown above), where they enjoyed exploring Fort Shirley (I had arranged for free admission for our group at all the national parks because of the good deed they were performing for us). We finished Sunday by watching the sun set over Douglas Bay. It was a good introduction to the island.
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Monday morning was a hard core work day, as the mixers started, the wheelbarrows rolled, the shovels flew, and the cement was poured. By the end of the day, we had completed more than half of the court. Monday also included a visit by some of the other Peace Corps Volunteers from around the island, along with the Director of Peace Corps for the Eastern Caribbean, who wanted to see this project. One of the other Peace Corps Volunteers from nearby Bense brought along the dance group from her school to perform at lunch (shown below).
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After a hard day of work, the volunteers joined the local kids for a swim in the ocean (which became a daily practice). My students loved this!
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Monday ended with dinner, which included a visit by Captain Don (he <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/02/sailing-with-sophia.html">captains the sailboat</a> I've gone on a few times, plus is a scuba instructor) and a couple of his scuba diving friends. They had caught about 30 pounds of lion fish to donate to this project. They also gave a talk to the students about lion fish, an invasive species (which began as an aquarium fish) with no natural predators that is hurting the coral reefs. Just as we were leaving that night after dark, some locals were eager to point out the baby turtles that were hatching and heading to the sea (yes, that is my hand shown in the picture below, but I had learned how to handle turtles during <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/06/turtle-campout.html">this previous story</a>). How fortuitous for this rare occurrence to happen during their visit!
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Tuesday was another hard work day, but the good news was that we finished the slab in two days (our court was a bit smaller than regulation, so that it didn't impede on the cricket boundary). Everyone felt good about the progress we had made. We celebrated with Dominican fireworks (burning steel wool that is twirled to give it more oxygen to burn hotter, with sparks flying off from the centrifugal force).
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Wednesday was an easier day, after two very hard days. We worked on the backboards, the poles, and other chores. Some landscaping was done at the school as well. The volunteers also painted a nice “handprint” sign on the river wall near the court (shown near the end of this story). More baby turtles hatched in the afternoon, adding to the excitement. After dinner, the Americans threw together a “thank you” party for the community volunteers. The love was growing!
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Thursday was their designated tourism day, to see some of the more famous sites in the southern part of the island (where the cruise ships dock). It meant a lot of bus riding, but they seemed to enjoy the day. It started at beautiful <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-four-falls-field-trip.html">Emerald Pool</a>, then went to Freshwater Lake, to <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/09/trafalgar-falls.html">Trafalgar Falls</a>, and to a hot sulphur spring spa.
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The day ended with a fantastic lobster dinner as we watched the sun set into the Caribbean at Sunset Bay (where my picture at the beginning of this story was taken). The high school boys enjoyed skipping flat stones across the tranquil Caribbean as they watched the sun's last glints.
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The last work day on Friday saw the backboards and hoops installed. We finally got to take the first shots on the new court. The new soccer (football) goals were also painted and put up, with the new nets connected to them. The big bag of Courts for Kids balls was opened, and soon everyone was playing on the court and on the field. It was great to see the American volunteers playing with the locals! Everyone was so happy to have this project completed. The week ended Friday night with a bonfire on the beach.
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This project required a lot of work on my part. I could have “coasted out” once school was completed, but instead I was extremely busy (even now after the volunteers have left, as I work to return borrowed items and generally wrap up the project). There were times, especially before the volunteers arrived, when I wondered whether this was going to be worth the hassles. However, the court is already getting heavy use, as is the new football goals and nets. The school received several improvements as well (including uprights for a tarp to provide a sun shade over the picnic tables). These physical improvements will mean a lot to my village.
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But these physical improvements pale in comparison to the good that came out of this cultural exchange between the visiting Americans and the people of my village. In just one short week, these Americans could tell what a fantastic community this is. I feel as if I hit the Peace Corps jackpot when it comes to assignments! Community spirit is strong in this progressive little village, as evidenced by our <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-village-feast.html">upcoming village feast</a>, as well as <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/02/community-carnival.html">our own carnival celebration</a>, <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-best-day-so-far.html">community service day</a>, and more. Perhaps the biggest example was the amount of <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/putting-up-with-erika_41.html">work this village did following Tropical Storm Erika</a>, by proactively digging out landslides with shovel and wheelbarrows rather than awaiting the government to arrive with heavy equipment (as most other places did).
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It is the cooperative and welcoming spirit of my villagers that really made this project such a huge success. I hope that some day in the future, these American volunteers make a return trip to Dominica and visit this particular village to see the court they helped build. I bet they will be greeted with open arms by the same villagers who befriended them this past week. The word will quickly spread throughout the village that one of our American friends has returned for a visit. The residents here will never forget the week when their village was “invaded” by benevolent Americans. It was truly beautiful, and well worth the few hassles. I'd highly recommend that other Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as any Americans interested in service travel, check out <a href="http://courtsforkids.org/">Courts for Kids</a>.
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P.S. You might enjoy seeing these videos made by two of the American volunteers during our trip.<P>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMR9-0DbR3c&app=desktop#">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMR9-0DbR3c&app=desktop#</a><P>
<a href="https://youtu.be/F1jaHMjYEO0">https://youtu.be/F1jaHMjYEO0</a>
<P>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggs0tomGTBWAukZBjnOPKO3BbfoSXnjJcMU2TLzw28VFiwbca-tg3bnFYdmY52TjwvZnHrBiI7PhqlSy_IZNGGwxj5-F3B5QkieyXIw_R2ROvbR56A-xnRI7jKTORUjYsgbMLmJyxLsos/s1600/hereitis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggs0tomGTBWAukZBjnOPKO3BbfoSXnjJcMU2TLzw28VFiwbca-tg3bnFYdmY52TjwvZnHrBiI7PhqlSy_IZNGGwxj5-F3B5QkieyXIw_R2ROvbR56A-xnRI7jKTORUjYsgbMLmJyxLsos/s320/hereitis.jpg" width="240" height="320" data-original-width="720" data-original-height="960" /></a></div>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-26838389303164492292017-07-17T03:50:00.000-07:002017-07-17T03:50:14.524-07:00S.C.U.B.A.Well, I got to cross another item off my bucket list. I finally got to try "swimming with the fishes" using a Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus—better known by the acronym “scuba.”
<P>
I learned that Dominica would be celebrating DiveFest this month, and that on Saturday, July 15, anyone could show up at Purple Turtle Beach and get the chance to strap on an air tank and “blow bubbles” underwater. I alerted the other Peace Corps Volunteers on the island, and one of them chose to join me. However, he wasn't the only person I knew who was present.
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Because I enjoy <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/06/horses-and-hot-beach.html">giving my students new experiences</a>, I brought along one of the sixth graders. He had recently scored the highest on the sixth grade national exam, so this was a reward from me for his efforts. He is also the best swimmer among all my students, and had already started doing snorkeling and free diving with some of the teenagers in the village. I felt he would enjoy this unique opportunity that he otherwise would never have had the chance to try.
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Another reason to only bring along one child is because there was a second offer on this day (which, with more students, would have become very expensive). At Purple Turtle Beach, you could learn the basics and then go into the water, but you were only swimming in shallow water maybe six feet deep. The bottom was all sand, so it was devoid of interesting scenery. However, if you enjoyed the free introductory session on the beach, for $50 EC (about $20 US) you could go over to the Cabrits National Park and do a longer session off their pier. The scenery is much better over there!
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All three of us—the other Peace Corps Volunteer, my student, and myself—enjoyed the introductory session, so we decided to do the $50 deal (meaning I paid a hundred, but it was worth it—<i>the more you give, the more you get</i>). We were given some additional training before we were suited up and taken out to the pier. Unlike at Purple Turtle, we were all in the same group, so no one was able to take pictures. Thus, all the pictures in this story came from the beach dive (along with one above showing my student learning the basics of CPR, which was also being demonstrated at a beach gazebo as part of DiveFest).
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I was the first to jump in from the pier where big ships dock, such as <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/02/an-unusual-taxi-ride.html">the Sea Cloud in this previous story</a>. Following the instructions from our instructor, I placed the arch of my flippered feet on the very edge of the pier. Holding one hand on my regulator and mask, and the other on my weight belt, I lunged one foot forward to jump in the water. Once everyone was in and ready, we went down maybe 20 feet to a large flat patch of sand in the midst of the boulders and coral under the water.
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A huge school of gray fish watched us with seeming curiosity as we descended. Our instructor, using sign language, told us to sit down on our knees on the bottom, as he demonstrated a few of the instructions we had covered before coming down (how to clear water from our mask, how to purge the regulator if it came out of our mouth, etc.). It was so bizarre to be kneeling on the sandy bottom of this underwater world, yet still breathing relatively effortlessly!
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The tricky part of scuba diving is the need to equalize the pressure on your eardrums as you go deeper. Our brief experience in the shallow waters on the beach was not deep enough to cause any problems. However, in deeper water, you need to pinch your nostrils shut and force air into your Eustachian tubes to counteract the increasing pressure of the water. I was able to do it well enough to get through the dive, but I don't consider myself a master of this technique. Just like most things, I'm sure with more practice, this standard technique becomes quite easy.
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I enjoyed exploring the sea bottom, with its incredible variety of life. I saw some of the same fish I described in my previous <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/07/exploring-undersea-world-of-jacques.html">blog post about snorkeling</a>. However, this time I was able to swim at their level, rather than simply gazing down from the surface of the water. To be breathing underwater while free to move around was a surreal experience. I'm very glad I was able to add this to the list of adventures I have enjoyed while serving with the Peace Corps on the Nature Isle of Dominica.
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With this little excursion completed, my focus has shifted back to preparations for the Courts for Kids project. The 23 Americans will be arriving in the village this Friday. I hope it turns out to be successful! WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-45454575337070709822017-07-07T19:43:00.000-07:002017-07-07T19:43:07.795-07:00My July (so far)This month has been epic so far, with several significant events. Allow me to give you a brief glimpse of my past week.
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It started on Saturday, July 1, when the Peace Corps Volunteers in Dominica gathered at Mero Beach to celebrate America's Independence Day. We had to do it on July 1 because obviously July 4th is not a holiday here—it was just another school day. Mero Beach has been described as the most “American” of Dominica's beaches, so it was appropriate to gather there. Below is a picture taken of our group (which included some special local friends who were also invited to join us).
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On Sunday afternoon (July 2) in my village, the preschool held its graduation ceremony at the Pentecostal Church. It was so packed that I had to watch through the windows from the outside. These little children were so cute in their graduation robes. In the picture below taken on the front porch of the church, the leader of the preschool is organizing them for their entrance into the building.
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Monday was a regular work day, albeit the first day of the last week of school. Tuesday was busy after school, as I had back-to-back committee meetings. The first was related to the Courts for Kids project, followed immediately by the Village Feast committee meeting. I've kept very busy with Village Council, credit union, and other committee meetings outside of the school day. I've had some weeks where there was a meeting each night. However, I enjoy staying busy, especially when comes to helping the good folks in my village.
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After the second meeting concluded, I could finally meet up with the kids in the village to celebrate America's Independence Day on the actual Fourth of July. Fireworks are a big part of July 4th in America. In Dominica, I have not seen the kind of fireworks we have back home. What Dominica calls fireworks is much simpler—a steel wool pad tied to a string, which is then lit and twirled. The speed of the rotation adds oxygen to the smoldering steel wool, leading to a hotter burn and sparks being ejected by the centrifugal force.
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While I was home for my daughter's wedding, I decided to improve on the basic concept. I brought back a small wire cage that my dad had used for putting suet cakes on the bird feeder. It holds the steel wool much better than a simple string. The photo above shows a girl twirling my firework cage by simply holding the short chain that attaches to the door. However, it didn't take long to discover that the best sparks came from rotating it with a full arm, windmill effect, especially if you lightly grazed the concrete street surface to bounce off more sparks, as shown below. It was a great way to celebrate America's 241st birthday!
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Wednesday was graduation day. Last year my school did not have any 6th graders at all, so this was my first experience with their primary school graduation ceremony. It was held at the Catholic Church, the largest building in the village. There were numerous awards, a keynote speaker, a state-of-the-school report from the principal, special music, and much more.
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The photo at the very top of this story was taken by one of my students as we prepared for the ceremony (notice the necktie I purchased here--it is a traditional Creole design). The picture just above this paragraph shows one of our four 6th graders exuberantly “dancing” down the aisle, celebrating her last moments as a primary school student, during the recessional at the end of the ceremony.
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I want to share the pictures of these two wonderful students. The boy above scored the highest on the 6th grade national exam. The girl below won the “Most Outstanding Student” award (shown with her teacher, Miss Thomas, who is an excellent instructor). Both students are great kids. If I had extended for a third year, I would dearly miss all four of these 6th graders next year!
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Their big day was not over yet for these four graduates. The staff (along with some parents) took them to a “graduation party” at a nice little restaurant on the island that features a small swimming pool. I was the only adult who jumped in the pool to swim with the kids (as shown below), and we had a blast! I think they will remember their graduation day for a long time!
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On Thursday, most all of the students participated with our school field trip. We piled onto two large vans and went to the southern tip of the island. I've <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-end-of-island.html">written before about Scotts Head</a>, the unique southwestern tip of the island, where a narrow strip of land separates the Atlantic from the Caribbean. I took the picture below as we hiked up the hill.
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Later, I tried to take a group picture at one of the old cannon placements, but most of them were more interested in the incredible view.
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Then we headed over to the Soufriere church, which I previously wrote about <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/09/beautiful-church-plus-hot-beach.html">here (and it became one of my most popular stories</a>). This time, since no one was there with me, I went up the steps and snapped this photo from the balcony.
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After eating our lunches in the shade near the church, we headed to the hot sulphur springs at Soufriere. Below is a picture of the children (and some parents) frolicking in the mineral-laden water.
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On the way back home, we stopped at a local convenience store (called the 7-11, but it is not related to the American chain). I contributed towards ice cream cones for all the children as a grand finale. It had been a big day! Then, as we passed the small airstrip known as the Canefield Airport, I snapped this picture of the sun setting into the Caribbean (a view we never get on the Atlantic side of the island).
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Friday there was no school for the students, but staff reported to work. It was bittersweet for me, because I am realizing that I may not see some of my coworkers anytime soon (I'm the only one who lives in the village). They have meant so much to me during my two years here. I owe much of whatever small successes I have had here to their support. They don't have a lot to work with, but they work very hard. I'm proud to have served with them. Plus, I will always have this keepsake scrapbook of wonderful pictures that they made for me and presented at the graduation ceremony this week. They said they wanted me to always remember them, but I assured them that I will never forget my time here!
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P.S. <i>I'm also very proud of my friends who made contributions to my Courts for Kids project. Altogether, you contributed nearly $2000 US dollars for my village, which will help us finish our court as well as make other smaller community improvements. When converted to Eastern Caribbean dollars, it is over $5000—a big help that will truly make a difference.
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While I won't post names, I thought I would list the initials of each donor below. If you tried to donate but don't see your initials listed, feel free to contact me to see if your donation got assigned to a different project (I worry about the Dominican Republic getting confused with Dominica) or if something else went wrong. And once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
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JM, JK, JP, AC, TSK, MF, SP, RW, LC, TM, JB, SB, MK, MH, BR, KM, TS</b> WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-65466727281320696852017-06-30T18:22:00.000-07:002017-06-30T18:22:30.038-07:00Public ArtI've written before of how my limited artistic talents have proven beneficial at the school (for example, read “<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/02/graphic-arts.html">Graphic Arts</a>” or “<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/03/im-no-michelangelo.html">I'm no Michelangelo</a>”). However, I've been doing a lot of work away from the school as well lately.
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I don't have any pictures, but I painted the name and the registration number on both sides of a fishing boat at the nearby port of Anse-de-Mai. Another fisherman wants me to do his boat as well. Rather than paying me cash, I arranged for fish to be donated for feeding the Courts for Kids people who are coming to build the playing court in my village at the end of July. [Special thanks to those of you who donated to this project! I can still get donations over the next ten days or so <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">if you want to help</a>.]
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I've also done some painting for the Village Council. To promote our annual village feast—known as “Fete Thibaud” in the kweyol language—I painted the wall along the road near the beach where the feast is held. I only did a red outline of the letters to preserve the yellow and black traffic control theme of the existing wall.
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I told my students (this wall is across from the school entrance) that all the letters look like they are dancing (or drunk), except for the letter “U”—which is also a bit thinner than the other letters. I told them that is because I want all of them to stay on the “straight and narrow,” so I crafted that life advice reminder into the sign.
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The <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/05/inside-bat-cave.html">new bat cave trail</a> is important to the future of our village. In order to make drive through tourists more aware of it, I painted a mural on the front of the building known as the fundraising center that the Village Council owns along the main road. I wanted to make it similar to the logo for the old Batman television show. As it turned out, I was working on this mural the weekend that Adam West, the actor who portrayed Batman on television, died. Thus, it is a bit of my own personal tribute to him. I especially like the picture above (that someone else had taken without my knowledge) because it shows me explaining what I was doing to one of my young first graders.
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I also wanted to promote Fete Thibaud along the side of the fundraising center that faces oncoming traffic. To the left of the doorway (see above), I have a festive “Fete” in different colored letters above a calligraphy version of Thibaud. To the right of the doorway (see below), the date of the village feast is explained in terms that won't require repainting each year (ignore the exposed wiring for the missing electric meter).
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I've shown this “Welcome to Thibaud” sign that I painted on the bus stop before, but I have since gone back and added a dark shadowing to make the letters stand out more. I'm limited in paint color selection, as it is expensive here and I must rely on donated paint.
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There is no signage along the main road to Portsmouth alerting drivers where to turn off to go to Thibaud. Most Dominicans already know where everything is, so road signs are not that important to them. I walked out to the main road a few weeks ago and looked for possibilities to increase our visibility and awareness to drivers. All I could find that was available was this end of an 8 inch wide concrete retaining wall near the turnoff. It isn't much, but at least now we have some form of presence along the main road that we didn't have before. Little steps can lead to big changes.
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Finally, I did this painting today for my landlord's shop along the main road. She seemed to like the Old English look to the lettering (that is her husband standing in the doorway in the picture below). It may not be perfect, but at least we are getting a bit more of a presence along the roadway. When I first got here, you could drive through the village and never know the name of it. It wasn't very inviting to outsiders. My hope is that in some way these “public art” projects will eventually help to bring in some much needed tourist money. This village can certainly use it!
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P.S. I thought I'd share with you what I had for lunch today. We got out of school early today (thus no school lunch), so I purchased some pig snout soup from one of the shops to have for lunch today. Pig's feet, pig tail, and pig snout are commonly used in Caribbean cooking, and they really aren't all that bad. I have described pig snout as tasting like ham, only chewier.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJOwjS3MaAjJUjKf7YF8mxtledKHqAE78pLtzW2KnFdkGpYxnP5b3WGLaHkjeLQR4D7m_-c1OELe-XAOGy21aL8B6Wafo95OU0fe3u12tWcfb2wd6befrb84fQmCKinn2NvrINTS_TFc/s1600/snout.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJOwjS3MaAjJUjKf7YF8mxtledKHqAE78pLtzW2KnFdkGpYxnP5b3WGLaHkjeLQR4D7m_-c1OELe-XAOGy21aL8B6Wafo95OU0fe3u12tWcfb2wd6befrb84fQmCKinn2NvrINTS_TFc/s320/snout.JPG" width="240" height="320" data-original-width="240" data-original-height="320" /></a></div>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-13796202927004431182017-06-17T03:29:00.000-07:002017-06-17T03:30:09.574-07:00Horses and a Hot BeachOne of my favorite aspects of being a Peace Corps Volunteer down here is helping my students have experiences they've never had before. Whether it is as simple as <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-space-station-sees-us.html">watching the Space Station pass overhead</a> (and enjoying “magical” glow bracelets afterwards), <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-mission-trip.html">sailing on a 40 foot yacht</a>, <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-four-falls-field-trip.html">seeing a real airplane</a> close up, building a <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/waterwheels-river-rafts-and-beautiful.html">bamboo raft</a> to float on the river, swimming in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-priceless-pool-party.html">a real swimming pool</a>, or countless other first time experiences (many of which—including the ones I just listed here—have been documented in this blog), I've loved every one of them. The excitement of doing something for the very first time is quite invigorating, even if you are just watching someone else go through something to which you're already accustomed.
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This week I had the opportunity to enjoy the students' broad smiles as they got the chance to try something new—riding horses. Check out the pictures that I have interspersed in this story to see for yourself. There is a horse stable, the Brandy Manor Equestrian Center, that offers schools a program where for just $10 EC per student (less than $4 U.S. dollars), they get to go for a guided trail ride on a real horse. We arranged an afternoon outing for our 5th and 6th grade class, and caught a bus headed that direction after we ate lunch at school on Wednesday. [This is the same horse stable we encountered on our <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/05/belle-marche.html">Belle Marche</a> last year when we tried to go to <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/brandy-falls.html">Brandy Falls</a>.]
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The seven students all had a blast. Some had a few initial trepidations, but it was great to see them overcome their fears and end up sitting tall in the saddle. All who did it came back with huge smiles and the overwhelming desire to do it again someday.
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I emphasized to all of them that the feeling they had of riding atop a large horse ambling along a trail was similar to what mankind around the world had experienced for countless generations when traveling distances until the growth of the automobile in just the last century. Hopefully they can remember that feeling and it will help some future secondary school history lesson come alive for them.
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Afterward, we hiked back out to the main road, and walked along it until we caught a bus with enough room to take us all to Portsmouth. From there, we caught a bus taking us to the southern end of Picard, where we got out and walked to Coconut Beach. We finished the afternoon with some swimming and some cricket on the beach. We also ate the breadfruit and codfish the teacher brought along, as well as the can of Pringles I contributed.
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[I made them do some mental math to figure out how many Pringle chips there were in the can based on the average serving size of 15 and with 6 servings per can. Then I made them divide into that total to decide how much each person should get (plus we figured out other totals to continue the lesson). It was a good opportunity to demonstrate math in action.]
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I had been to Coconut Beach several times, but I learned something during this trip that I had not been aware of before. The students showed me how if you dug down in the sand, it was very hot. I knew there was a hot spring in nearby Glanvalia, but I did not realize that Coconut Beach was in a “hot zone.” You could dig your feet in the sand under the water and instantly feel the heat. The students liked smearing the hot wet sand on their faces and skin (I tried it as well). I tried digging with my hands in shallow water, and only got about 6-8 inches deep before it was too hot for my hands to go any deeper. It's hard to believe that the magma of the earth is so close to the surface on this island.
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We ended the day by walking back into Picard to an ice cream store, where I purchased an ice cream cone for everyone (me buying ice cream on these special trips has become a tradition). It was a great way to end a great day! [Notice that you can see me in the background of the picture below.]
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Finally, I just want to mention how busy my week has been, beyond just teaching school. Sunday was the Annual General Meeting of the National Cooperative Credit Union down in the capital city. Monday night was a committee meeting for the basketball court project. Tuesday night was the disaster management committee meeting. Wednesday night was the tourism committee. Thursday night was the Village Feast committee meeting. It isn't always this busy, but I'm glad to be actively involved in my community. It is a good place to be!
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<blockquote><b>P.S. I just wanted to once again plead with my readers to donate towards building a playing court for my village, as part of the matching funds to the grant I won (described in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">this previous story</a>) from an American charity. Time is running out because the charity will be transferring most of our money by the end of this month. I'm very grateful for the donations that have already been made, but I'd love to get more money to help out this wonderful community who has been so welcoming to me. Every U.S. dollar gets multiplied by about 2.67 when converting to Eastern Caribbean dollars, so a simple $38 donation from America becomes a triple figure ($100 EC) donation down here. It makes a difference!
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For anyone leery of donating via a website using your credit card (the instructions for the electronic donation process can be found in the link above), it is also possible to donate the old fashioned way. You can mail a check to Courts for Kids, and just note “Thibaud, Dominica community court” in the memo line. Make the check out to “Courts for Kids” and mail it to: <P>
<b>Courts for Kids <BR>
PO Box 873786 <BR>
Vancouver, WA 98687 <P></b>
Thank you for at least considering a donation, whether electronically or by check! It will make a big difference for my students and others in the village. The good folks here will surely appreciate your generosity!
</b></blockquote>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-89691428039281386452017-06-12T18:47:00.000-07:002017-06-12T18:47:35.173-07:00Two Years; One FearThese last few days have been important anniversaries for me. Two years ago on June 10, after retiring from my job, selling my house (and motorcycle), and giving my car to my daughter, I left West Virginia to overnight near the Pittsburgh airport. On June 11, 2015, I boarded a plane early that morning to join others in my group at our staging point in Miami. Two years ago today, on June 12, 2015, a total of 32 new Peace Corps recruits left a Miami hotel, boarded an international flight, and headed to the Caribbean. It was truly a leap into the unknown—the first steps on an incredible journey!
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Fast forward two years to today, and I know I am a changed man. I've learned so many things about people, life, and myself. I've made lots of new friends (both Dominicans and fellow Peace Corps Volunteers). I have a comfortable life in a loving village that cares about me. I'm truly blessed to have been given this opportunity (that is my shirt shown below).
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Serving in President John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps is quite an honor. This is the centennial of JFK's birth in 1917 (it's virtually impossible to imagine him as 100 years old, since the assassin's bullet essentially froze him at age 46 in our memories), and many special events are being held to commemorate this centennial. I recently saw a video of Congressman Joe Kennedy III speaking about his great uncle and the Peace Corps. If you have the time and interest, it's worth watching by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4JSCXeGTI0">clicking here</a>.
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To commemorate the two year anniversary of the start of our Peace Corps careers, my colleagues and I went sailing on Saturday. The five of us from my class were joined by four of the other Peace Corps Volunteers. This was my third time on this boat (see my previous accounts <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/02/sailing-with-sophia.html">here</a> and <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-mission-trip.html">here</a>), but the first time for all the others. Everyone had a great time, as shown in these pictures! Plus, this time we got to see a huge sea turtle surface near the boat. It was a great way to celebrate this major milestone, and spend time together before we start heading our separate ways later this summer.
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I have mixed emotions about my Peace Corps service coming to an end. I love the place where I was assigned. It will not be easy to leave the friends I have made here. The only thing that makes it palatable is knowing that I have already made arrangements to come back next winter for a vacation here, just to check up on everyone (and escape the cold weather). I will forever be connected to Dominica.
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However, I need to go back to my West Virginia home. That point was hammered home to me once I got back to my house after the sailing trip on Saturday. My sister—my only sibling—who was one year behind me all through school, sent me a message that popped up on the small screen of my phone. All I could see was the first line: “Have some bad news to tell you.”
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I immediately assumed she was referring to the death of Adam West, star of the “Batman” television show we both loved as children in the 1960s. My Facebook newsfeed was already full of this news from my contemporaries who had also been fans, so I thought I knew what she was going to tell me.
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Unfortunately, that wasn't the bad news. She shared with me that she had been diagnosed with cancer on Friday. This shocking news hit me like a ton of bricks! Hopefully they caught it early enough and she will be able to beat it. She asked me to bring her back a Dominica souvenir bandana that she can wear to cover her head when her hair falls out from the chemo treatments. I purchased two bandanas today—one for her and one for me to wear in solidarity with her (shown in the photo at the top of this story).
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This unexpected development shows why I need to get home in August. It also emphasized to me the fragility of life. You just never know when your life can be turned upside down. Thus, you should make the most of each and every day. I will leave you with one of my favorite photos of the two of us, in front of our 1970 Volkswagen when we were leaving home to head to the University of Charleston about 40 years ago.
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WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-47458158919186160912017-05-31T15:21:00.000-07:002017-05-31T15:21:47.331-07:00As Time Winds DownDuring your service in the Peace Corps, there are three major training sessions. The first and longest (about ten weeks) is the Pre-Service Training (PST) where they prepare you for how to be a volunteer, for living alone in your assigned village, and for performing your designated job. Mine ran from <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-first-two-days.html">my departure in June 2015</a> through August 2015. Upon completion of PST, you are finally sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV).
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After your first year as a PCV, everyone in your class reassembles for Mid-Service Training (MST). Our MST was held in October at <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/06/leaving-abbey.html">the Abbey where we spent our very first weekend in the Caribbean</a>. It was great to be with my colleagues once again (my group's MST picture is shown above).
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The third major training session for each cohort class is the Close of Service Training, known to Peace Corps Volunteers throughout the world as COS. The COS for my class was held a few weeks ago on the island of St. Lucia (where the Eastern Caribbean headquarters for Peace Corps is located). Instead of the austere Abbey, the COS training was held in a nice hotel (although not beachfront, so they were still trying to be frugal) with a swimming pool (see photo above). Even though we have several months left in our service, they needed to hold our training session before they can get ready for the Pre-Service Training for the incoming group of new volunteers now arriving. Plus, there is a lot we need to do before we return to the USA.
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It was great to be reunited with the amazing group of people (pictured above, the night we were transported to the beach for a BBQ dinner) that comprised our group, the 87th group of volunteers trained for assignment in the Eastern Caribbean (thus our designation as EC87). We had persevered through the arduous Pre-Service Training in June and July of 2015 on St. Lucia, and then were scattered to our four different islands (Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, or St. Vincent and the Grenadines) on August 1 of that year. Our Mid-Service Training last fall was the only time since Pre-Service Training that we had been together as a group. It was wonderful to renew our friendships. There are truly some great people from across the USA who are in my class—and seemingly throughout the Peace Corps. As the time begins to dwindle for my 800 days as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I went down to the inlet by myself on the last night to view the sunset. While there, I watched the ship shown below returning to the harbor—just like I will be returning home in a few short months. However, I still have a lot to get done before I head home, especially the construction of a playing court in late July (I'm still <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">seeking donations for this project</a>).
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As we celebrate the centennial of <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/03/kennedy-and-me.html">President Kennedy</a>'s birth, I feel honored to be serving in his Peace Corps. I hope this federal program will continue for many years to come—however, the current President's budget proposal makes big cuts in America's service programs such as the Peace Corps. I hope that Republicans in Congress will realize that the Peace Corps is spreading much goodwill on behalf of America and that it is worth continuing at its present size, if not larger. It will be a shame if it is cut.
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One final point about my COS training—on the way back home from St. Lucia to Dominica, the ferry boat (which is cheaper than flying, and the Peace Corps tries to keep costs down) made its mid-way stop at the French island of Martinique. We were docked across the harbor from a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter. Some of you know that I almost went to the Coast Guard Academy after high school, so the Coast Guard has always been interesting to me. As we left, I could see the name on the stern was “Donald Horsley.” About a week after I was back home, I finally got around to do a web search on this ship.
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It turns out that this ship had a busy week after I saw it. A few days later, it<a href="http://wicnews.com/caribbean/saint-lucia/six-st-lucia-men-rescued-after-13-hours-at-sea-49211648/"> rescued six men from a disabled boat</a>. Not long after this news story, there was <a href="http://coastguardnews.com/coast-guard-cutter-donald-horsley-offloads-1-2-million-dollars-worth-of-marijuana/2017/05/19/">another news story</a> about this ship's arrival in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where it offloaded over a million dollars worth of marijuana that it had seized. It was good to see this example of the American government performing visible work to help this area. It was also interesting to see that the commanding officer of this vessel is a woman. Finally, all this reminded me of the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/peace-and-comfort.html">U.S. Navy hospital ship that was visiting Dominica when I first arrived</a>. I feel it is important for the United States to help developing countries around the world, and the Peace Corps, the hospital ship, and the Coast Guard are good examples.
WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-6432967087593239152017-05-30T04:08:00.000-07:002017-05-30T04:08:37.351-07:00Marching AgainSome of you may remember the story I previously wrote about the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/11/diabetes-march.html">“Diabetes March”</a> that our school held. It was organized by the government Health Center (they have a form of universal health care here) which is located on the other side of the playing field from our school. We made signs and then the children marched through the village chanting slogans against diabetes. At the end, they were rewarded with juice and healthy snacks.
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Recently, our village's Health Center organized another similar activity (the nurses who joined us are shown above). This time it was a “Vaccination March” through the village. It was part of an island-wide campaign to encourage parents to get their children immunized against diseases. The students enjoyed participating in this one as much as they had enjoyed the previous march, as these pictures attest.
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I've been fortunate that I haven't had any major health problems down here. The Peace Corps has two doctors assigned to the Eastern Caribbean to take care of all of us, and I am impressed with all they do (I will miss this free service when I go home). However, I did get a splinter in my hand one day from the wooden frame around the chalkboard. The principal recommended that I go see the nurse at the nearby Health Center. It was a very nice building with basic equipment necessary for its simple function. I walked in and the nurse took quick care of me (no waiting!), and then I was on my way back to school. No paperwork, no billing, no administrative staff handling all the paperwork, nothing! Just pure healthcare! It was quite different from my experiences with American healthcare.
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I'm not saying that healthcare is better here, but it does make me realize how much administrative overhead is required for the American system of healthcare. That's just one of the reasons why American healthcare costs are so high! I'm not looking forward to returning to the mess that the American healthcare system has become. It seems to me that Trumpcare is not the answer, because those losing health insurance will just cause the costs to go up for the rest of us. Plus, separating out those in high-risk pools may lower costs for the healthy, but will increase the costs for those who need help the most. Obamacare needed changes, but to totally trash his effort to impose the Massachusetts (Romney) model on the entire country is wrong. I am sad for the future of my country.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNg-7XbEaPt_ioKYD0zSZ0sxsNVcIFVGizwrIIHcizjhEN_A7tcf2S1Li1GtY0drxxsIIxCpp1sx08-sb_1Ma6OXD4S2f6G27h4NTotrTOx8g-YAdl-fMHIIenqxGkL5-J7kT2TU4ZXWQ/s1600/IMG_8812.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNg-7XbEaPt_ioKYD0zSZ0sxsNVcIFVGizwrIIHcizjhEN_A7tcf2S1Li1GtY0drxxsIIxCpp1sx08-sb_1Ma6OXD4S2f6G27h4NTotrTOx8g-YAdl-fMHIIenqxGkL5-J7kT2TU4ZXWQ/s320/IMG_8812.JPG" width="240" height="320" data-original-width="480" data-original-height="640" /></a></div>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-65186717083706848842017-05-25T15:50:00.000-07:002017-05-25T15:50:15.968-07:004-HUnfortunately, I wasn't much of a “joiner” in my youth. We lived “out in the country” so it wasn't as easy to get involved as it was for kids living in town. It wasn't until my college years on a small campus that I really got involved with organizations (thank you, UC, for bringing me out of my shell). In hindsight, I wish I would have belonged to the 4-H during my youth, because much to my surprise, I find myself involved with it down here on this tropical island.
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Just like many schools in Dominica, our school has a 4-H club. It meets every couple of weeks during the last hour of the school day. As a formal organization, they learn about how meetings are run. Usually they do some sort of project, such as beautifying the school grounds. Plus, they learn some of the basics about agriculture (a major source of income in my area).
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Recently, a man from the village helped us build some raised gardening beds so that vegetables for the school lunch program could be started from seeds. Growing the vegetables in the raised beds protects them from animals. As you can see in the picture below, the beds were built using PVC pipe, rebar, cement, and sheet metal.
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These are all pictures from a recent work day.
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One of the fifth graders is busy swinging a pickaxe to get some good dirt at the base of this cliff beside the school. He is digging out hardened dirt from an old drainage ditch.
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A blue wastebasket from inside the school doubles as a container to carry fresh dirt to the raised beds.
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In the Caribbean, nearly everyone has a cutlass (which Americans tend to call a machete, but no one calls them by that name down here). Even the older students use the school's cutlass to trim the bushes and other activities. The picture above demonstrates how a cutlass and a hammer can be used to cut a piece of galvanized (the term they use for the corrugated sheet metal often used here).
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In the picture above, many hands are working to break up some fertilizer (as in dried animal manure). Notice that our beautiful kindergarten/1st grade teacher is on the left side of this picture. She is digging into the fertilizer and breaking it up, right alongside her kids, even though she has some fancy fingernails. I bet many women in America would not be willing to do what she is doing for her students!
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The blue classroom wastebasket also doubles as a pail of water. The student is using his hand to flick water onto the newly planted seedlings (look close and you can see drops of water flying through the air).
<P>
Even though it is late in the school year to get this project going, I am glad to see it happen. I think it is important for us to grow some of our own food to supplement our fledgling school lunch program, which was new for this year (last year I pretty much just ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch each day). Hopefully the children will learn some responsibility as they work to keep the plants alive with water and attention. Indeed, the 4-H program is very good for children, regardless of the country in which you live.WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-19165699339478864392017-05-23T13:22:00.000-07:002017-05-23T13:22:15.342-07:00Inside the Bat Cave!When I arrived in my village nearly two years ago, I was fascinated by the nightly exodus of thousands of bats from a nearby bat cave isolated just up the coastline. Most of the locals were rather “ho-hum” about it, because they had seen it all their lives. It really wasn't much of a big thing to them. However, I enjoyed going down to the shore to wait for the bats to stream out (frequently joined by some of my students).
<P>
I wrote <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-bat-cave.html">my initial blog story about the bats</a> in my first few weeks here during August 2015. A few short weeks later, <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/09/to-bat-cave.html">I wrote a second blog story</a> telling how one of the local residents led me on a challenging journey to the opening of the bat cave. About a year ago, <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-exodus-of-bats.html">I wrote a third story </a>about when I went up on <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/10/lislette.html">L'islette</a> to observe the exodus of the bats from a different angle.
<P>
Even though I have not written any additional bat cave blog stories, I never lost interest in it. I made several more visits around the rocky point to the cave entrance, but had never tried to make the difficult passage to actually get into the cave.
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I did perform some Internet research and made contact with a group of scientists (including a bat research team) who will be coming to Dominica next month. They are from an international science group called Operation Wallacea. I have already talked to them about doing an educational presentation for our community about our bats. We need to better understand our neighbors (and fellow mammals).
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However, the upcoming visit by scientists is not the big news about our bats. The big news is that a new trail has been blazed that makes access to our unique bat cave much easier (and safer) than it used to be. It is amazing to see the big ocean waves roll up the narrow inlet and into the gaping black hole at the bottom of the cliff that is the mouth of the cave. We hope it will help bring more tourists to our little community, where they might spend some money to help our economy. I've already taken a number of visitors over there to see it, and they have all loved it. The picture above shows me on the wooden bridge that was installed which lets people safely get over to the rocks that lead into the cave itself. Prior to the building of this bridge, it was extremely difficult to go inside the cave.
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The pictures above and below this paragraph show the posts and cables that have been installed to help provide extra safety. The new path was carved out of the rock so that hikers stay above the waves of the ocean. For those daring enough, you can still climb up the rocks and steep cliff to get there as well, if you want to do it the hard way.
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Using the new bridge, I was finally able to enter the cave itself. Bats hanging upside down were clustered thick on the ceiling of the cave roof. I tried to stay quiet and move slowly, but still my presence spooked a bunch of them. If you look close in the picture below, you can see some of the bats flying out and around mouth of the cave (you can also see one of my students who did not venture into the cave).
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I certainly enjoyed the view looking out from the cave towards the Atlantic, but I didn't stay long enough to explore the entire cave. I decided I had already disturbed too many of the bats, so I still don't know how far back it goes. I could not see an “end” because it looked as if it curved further back. One would definitely need a flashlight if you wanted to explore the entire length of the cave.
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I gave a lecture to our students (one of whom is pictured above running up the new steps on the trail) the next day during morning assembly, warning them that although it is now much easier to access the cave, we should all be respectful of the bats. In other words, don't make a lot of noise back there, avoid playing in the cave area, never throw rocks to stir the bats, etc. My biggest fear is that the bats may decide to vacate the cave because humans are disturbing them too much. However, even if the bats move away, the trail will still be an interesting hike to see an unusual oceanfront cave—but hopefully the bats will persevere with their newfound stardom and stay in their home.
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[<i>One of the local young adults made a 13 minute video (featuring Dominican music) that details the hike to the bat cave. Check it out at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okMzSyqx7aM&feature=share">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okMzSyqx7aM&feature=share</a></i>.]
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<blockquote><b>P.S. I just wanted to once again plead with my readers to donate towards building a playing court for my village, as part of the matching funds to the grant I won (described in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">this previous story</a>) from an American charity.
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For anyone leery of donating via a website using your credit card (the instructions for the electronic donation process can be found in the link above), it is also possible to donate the old fashioned way. You can mail a check to Courts for Kids, and just note “Thibaud, Dominica community court” in the memo line. Make the check out to “Courts for Kids” and mail it to: <P>
<b>Courts for Kids <BR>
PO Box 873786 <BR>
Vancouver, WA 98687 <P></b>
Thank you for at least considering a donation, whether electronically or by check! It will make a big difference for my students and others in the village. The good folks here will surely appreciate your generosity!
</b></blockquote>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-85003691671660057912017-04-30T10:18:00.000-07:002017-04-30T10:18:57.951-07:00Waterwheels, River Rafts, and Beautiful BeachesThis story is an attempt to wrap together some of the fun things I was able to do over the Easter break. I will start with something close to home. The picture below was taken by my friend's aerial drone while <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-mission-trip.html">they were visiting earlier this month</a>. It shows L'islette on the lower right side, our village in the upper right, our beach roughly in the middle, and <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/03/mont-rouge.html">Morne Rouge</a> on the left. If you look close on the left side, you can see a cylindrical hole in the side of Morne Rouge, which I've learned is known locally as Secret Beach (not to be confused with Secret Bay on the Caribbean side of Dominica). It gets the name because it is impossible to see from the main beach.
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I finally got around to exploring Secret Beach during Easter break. One should only go there at low tide and when the sea is calm. It is interesting to speculate as to how this hollow cavity was formed in the base of the seemingly solid rock. I climbed up the steep hillside to get a better angle on these pictures. Below are three shots I took—the first showing Secret Beach itself, the second looking at its little inlet, and the last one peering over towards the end of <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/10/lislette.html">L'islette (the peninsula that juts out from our beach</a>). I doubt this will be my last visit to Secret Beach, because I find it fascinating.
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One day we took a bus to the Calabishie area. While there, we explored Hodges Bay Beach, near where my Kentucky friends stayed during their visit earlier this month. This isolated Hodges Bay has a river that empties into the ocean, some rocky offshore islands, and some interesting red rock formations to climb around. The first picture below shows an overview of this secluded beach from a hill above the bay (notice the river cutting through the beach). The second picture looks up the river from the beach. The third picture is as far south as I was able to go along the rocks. The last picture looks out towards some large rocks in the ocean just off the beach. I hope these four pictures convey the beauty of this little known beach--just one of many on "the Nature Island."
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If the four pictures above aren't enough to convince you about how beautiful Hodges Bay really is, perhaps some aerial drone videos will convince you. [<i>I'm amazed at how well drones perform these days--his had a lot of range and produced outstanding videos!</i>] My friend put some of the videos he made with his drone on YouTube, and I think they are amazing. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3ciVPY8VXA&list=PLBm527sjDq7ldUTdIwG3FvoGf-2YH_Vwd&index=6">Click on this link to see my favorite 90 second video</a>. If you want to see more, check out his other videos on that YouTube page, all of which show the wild beauty of Hodges Bay.
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On another day, a group of us went to Batibou Beach. It is down the Atlantic coastline from our village. The first shot was taken from the access road rounding a curve on a cliff above the beach. That isn't another aerial drone picture--that's taken from the edge of the cliff. The other shot was taken on the beach itself (with the hillside cliff in the background).
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Not far from Batibou Beach is the old Hampstead Estate, along the Hampstead River. We walked there after leaving Batibou. What makes this deteriorating remnant from colonial days interesting is that it was the site for the filming of a famous scene from “Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man's Chest.” A swordfight takes place at an old mill, whose waterwheel eventually breaks free. The combatants continue their swordfighting while maintaining their balance as the wheel rolls through the jungle. The first picture below shows the abandoned concrete roadway built solely for a waterwheel to roll on during the filming (I knew about this because my neighbor in the village had worked for the movie production company during the filming). The second photo is the old mill building itself. The last photo is original waterwheel at this old mill, which is still firmly attached (and not rolling through the jungle).
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Finally, a group of students accompanied me out of our valley, across the ridge, and down into the Blenhim River valley, which we followed to where it empties into the sea. Before reaching the sea, the river widens and deepens prior to crossing the beach. Below is a picture of me on this isolated beach, which despite its proximity, none of my students had ever visited before. [<i>This had been my intended destination the day we ended up walking to a hotel for an impromptu pool party, and <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-priceless-pool-party.html">the previous blog story about that day</a> includes a nice picture looking down on this beach from the hillside</i>.]
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While there, we decided to see if we could build a raft from the bamboo that littered this wild beach. Some of the boys gathered some vines and started lashing together some similarly sized (about 6-8 feet) bamboo trunks. I admired their ingenuity, but I saw four very long pieces that I thought could be used without vines. My thought was the longer length would provide flotation, and the width of just four would allow the passengers to use their legs to hold the raft together. Below is a shot of this makeshift bamboo kayak on its successful maiden voyage (using a shorter piece of bamboo as a paddle).
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Of course, with its success, everyone wanted to get their chance, so when it came back to shore, everyone wanted to climb on. Unfortunately, there was a limit as to how many it could take, as shown in the picture below.
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However, everyone had a great time! We might need to hike there again someday with proper tools and materials to see if we can make a better bamboo boat. It is a beautiful location! I love Dominica!
WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-7329130697999514012017-04-29T04:00:00.000-07:002017-04-29T04:00:48.102-07:00Brandy FallsLast May, I wrote a blog story about <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/05/belle-marche.html">our school's “Belle Marche,”</a> a quixotic quest to find the fabled Brandy Falls. Unfortunately, we were not successful in locating the trail to see this waterfall, but we still had a good time, as my blog story described. However, not seeing Brandy Falls that day made me want to eventually find it. I finally got that chance over Easter break.
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I called the Brandy Manor Horse Stables, which is just off the main road near the mountain where the falls are located. They had someone who could guide us to see the falls (for a reasonable fee). On the appointed day, we went with the guide (as well as another couple) up the mountain.
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We followed the same small road up the hill that our school group had taken. At the top, where our teachers and parents had been searching for the trail, it became apparent that there no longer was a real trail. Our guide was using his cutlass (known in America as a machete) to hack his way through the vegetation. He told us that this was his first group to take to the falls since before Tropical Storm Erika devastated the island in August 2015. In the picture below, we are dropping down to cross a small creek.
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He slowly hacked his way up the other side. During this period of slow progress, you had to be careful not to be standing on an ant nest, because there was a lot of rotting wood on the ground—probably remnants from Erika. Eventually, we got into some old growth forest and crossed a ridge into another valley. The photo below shows us heading down that hillside.
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There was a larger stream running down this valley, and soon we were scrambling across the rocks strewn amidst the rushing waters. We could hear it before we could see it, as we worked our way upstream until I got this view of the waterfall through the trees.
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Finally, we made it to the base of Brandy Falls. It is a bit unusual, because the water is never in a free fall for a long distance. There is a slight slope to the hillside, so the water bounces its way down the long drop. It is very interesting to see, as the mid-day sun shone brightly on the entire length of the waterfall.
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According to the guide, officials from the Ministry of Tourism came to check out these falls once, but decided that since it didn't have a large pool at the bottom of it where visitors could swim, they weren't willing to develop a trail for easier access and then promote Brandy Falls as a destination. Perhaps the lack of a big pool at the base is because of the slight slope that prevents the water from freefalling to the bottom. However, I think it is still an interesting site to see, and there is a pool big enough to get inside and cool off if you desire. Plus, I love the variety of waterfall types that can be found in Dominica. Another example of an unusual waterfall is the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/06/bwa-nef-waterfall-hike.html">Bwa Nef waterfall</a> not far from my village, with its two large boulders straddling the top of its canyon. It is nice to have different types of waterfalls.
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On the way back, our guide shared with us some local fruits, coconut water, and coconut jelly. Once we got back to the horse stables, he also gave us a local rum punch. It was a very enjoyable day, and the woman who owns the stables is very interesting to chat with. After we left the stables to head for the main road, we decided (in part because we were so dirty from the hike) to walk all the way back to the village, giving me the opposite perspective from last year's Belle Marche when we walked the entire way in the other direction.
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A couple of days later, we returned to the same general area. This time we rode a bus to the village of Borne, which is located on the island's version of America's continental divide. On one side, water runs downhill into the Indian River which eventually empties into the Caribbean. On the other side of Borne, water runs into the Blenhim River, which empties into the Atlantic not far from my village.
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Back on December 29, we had taken a bus to Borne to <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/two-week-tourist.html">hike Segment 12</a> of the Waitukubuli Trail, which winds its way from one end of Dominica to the other (and is the longest hiking trail in the Caribbean). This time we started at the same point in Borne, but went the opposite direction, heading down the hill to explore a portion of Segment 11 of the Waitukubuli Trail.
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The trail eventually crosses the main road and then follows the upper part of the Indian River. The photo above shows one of my students standing next to the historical marker regarding the railroad (whose bed the trail follows for a while) that was used between 1910 and 1913 to haul timber out of the Indian River watershed.
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After crossing the river (by carefully picking a path among the rocks), you pass by the Brandy Manor Horse Stables before starting up the long hill. This time, we were nowhere near Brandy Falls, but still had an arduous climb up the mountain. As we neared the top, the humidity and shade meant we were in one of the clouds that sometimes hug the mountaintops here. It was an eerie feeling. After reaching the top and just starting down, we were rewarded with a lovely view of the city of Portsmouth, the boats in Prince Rupert Bay, and the twin hills of <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/03/my-indiana-jones-day.html">Cabrits National Park</a>, as shown in the pictures above and below this paragraph.
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We ended up exiting the official Segment 11 trail by taking a connector spur which leads into Portsmouth. There we re-fueled with ice cream from the same store that we had walked to during <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/04/one-mile.html">one of our other field trips last year</a>. It was a great way to spend the day in Dominica!
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<i>P.S. I just wanted to urge my readers to donate towards building a playing court for my village, as part of the matching funds to the grant I won (described in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">this previous story</a>).
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For anyone leery of donating via a website using your credit card (the instructions for the electronic donation process can be found in the link above), it is also possible to donate the old fashioned way. You can mail a check to Courts for Kids, and just note “Thibaud, Dominica community court” in the memo line. Make the check out to “Courts for Kids” and mail it to: <P>
<b>Courts for Kids <BR>
PO Box 873786 <BR>
Vancouver, WA 98687 <P></b>
Thank you for at least considering a donation, whether electronically or by check! It will make a big difference for my students and others in the village.
</i>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-16725065984103159042017-04-27T16:06:00.000-07:002017-04-27T16:06:18.178-07:00A Four Falls Field TripIn Dominica, the Monday following Easter is a holiday. Without any normal buses running that day, and on the heels (as well as the envy) of the successful trip for sixth graders (see my <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-mission-trip.html">previous blog story</a>), the sixth grade teacher and I quickly concocted a plan for an outing on Easter Monday for our fifth and sixth grade classes. As it turns out, not everyone could join us due to sickness or family plans that day, but we still had a great time. This day trip hit some of the tourist spots that my students who live in Dominica generally have not seen.
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We started off this day trip by heading south, which took us past the airport. The first stop was not a typical tourist spot, but was educational nonetheless. I had the driver make a diversion to check out a bar on the other side of the river from the end of the runway. I had noticed that it had an old Cessna 172 parked beside it—it was very similar to the Cessna 150 that my dad used to fly, and that I had actually flown (except for takeoff and landing). I realized that this would be the best way for my students to get “up close and personal” with an airplane. Having talked a lot about aviation topics in their science classes (and having <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-student-story.html">visited the control tower</a> last year), it was good to let them actually touch a plane for the first time.
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This particular plane had belonged to a German who was visiting the island when Tropical Storm Erika hit in August 2015 (see my <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-post-erika-post.html">report on this huge event</a>). The nearby river had flooded the airport, and had carried this plane down the length of the runway, where it ultimately got snagged in the chain link fence near the sea. The insurance company considered the plane totaled (although it seemed fixable to me), so the owner let the bar owner have it for display purposes.
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We then drove to beautiful Emerald Pool, which has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I had visited Emerald Pool about a dozen years ago when we were on a cruise ship that stopped on Dominica—I never realized during that single previous visit that someday I would be living on this island and would return to Emerald Pool with the students I was teaching. After a beautiful walk through the forest, the trail descends into a depression where a waterfall fills a pristine pool (as shown above). It is a magical place! The photo below shows some of our crew nearly behind the waterfall.
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We then hopped back in the van and drove to Jaco Falls (which is also sometimes referred to as Hibiscus Falls). It was very easily accessible from the roadway, with a concrete sidewalk and steps leading down to the pool. In the picture below, one of my students stands near the bottom of the waterfall.
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The next falls we visited was actually a two-for-one deal. It wasn't very far from Jaco Falls, but on the other side of the road in a different watershed. We hiked along a dirt road and then through the forest to visit Spanny's Falls. It was beautifully situated in a natural alcove with bits of sunlight filtering through the forest canopy to highlight the multiple shades of green surrounding the falls. There was a nice wooden viewing platform, but I had to tilt my camera diagonally to get the full length of the waterfall.
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We had been told that there was a second waterfall if you wanted to hike further. If you climb through the wooden railing that surrounds the viewing platform, there is a long rope that assists those willing to venture up the steep hillside. While their teacher stayed behind, I followed my students up the hill (as shown below) and through the forest to explore the next waterfall. While most of them left their shoes on that wooden viewing platform with their teacher so that they could climb barefoot, I chose to retain my shoes.
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After an invigorating hike that included another steep, rocky hillside where two ropes were provided to help hikers go up or down, we arrived at a nice waterfall (apparently known as Penrice Falls) on a nearby creek (by the way, “creek” is an American term—in Dominica, every such body of moving water is a river). I had assumed that the trail shown above was going to lead to another falls on the same creek, but higher up. Instead, we had crossed a ridge to a different valley. Upon arrival, we were rewarded with this lovely view. On this one, the upper end of the waterfall was bathed in sunlight.
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We then hiked our way out and back to the van. Our next stop was the capital city of Roseau to grab some food at one of the most popular restaurants on the island—KFC. My students love Kentucky Fried Chicken, so I bought a bucket for them to share (we had told them to bring a sack lunch and a drink, so the bucket of chicken was just icing on the cake to them). It is the only American restaurant on this island, which may add to its popularity (and I know it is also popular on St. Lucia, where I did my initial Peace Corps training). By the way, my students were amazed when I told them about the “all-you-can-eat” buffets at KFC restaurants back where I am from—they can't imagine being able to eat as much as you want to eat, especially if it is KFC chicken!
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We then headed up the West Coast Highway, and stopped at a place known as Coconut Beach just south of Portsmouth. This is where a lot of the villagers headed to celebrate Easter Monday, so the students who went on my van trip still got to play in the Caribbean with their friends from the village. Four waterfalls, an airplane, KFC chicken, and a Caribbean beach—they had a great time!
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It was also a memorable day for me, because I was invited to taste a specialty that I had never had before—iguana tail! Recently, a villager had invited me to see the initial preparations for cooking iguana. The first step is to roast the carcass over a fire (as shown above), so that the reptile's scales are easily removed by scraping with a knife.
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I missed the actually cooking process, but when presented with a full styrofoam plate, back among the sea grape trees lining this remote Caribbean beach, I accepted the opportunity to taste iguana. After all, it was already dead and cooked, and if I didn't eat it, someone else would—so why not give it a try? It was pretty good! I remembered to take a picture before I finished it, as you can see above. Note that it is cooked with the “de-scaled” green skin still on it. It was accompanied by the long rolled dumplings (which are very dense as compared to the puffy West Virginia dumplings I am accustomed to eating) which are commonly served here, along with a brown gravy. It was a great way to end a great day in Dominica!WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-56407835454172712892017-04-26T14:13:00.000-07:002017-04-26T14:13:27.786-07:00A Mission TripTrue friendship is an amazing phenomenon that can span across decades! I am so fortunate that one of my fellow classmates from high school has been reading this blog and following my adventure. She was one of my classmates who contributed school supplies to the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-mid-term-vacation.html">“Kurtz Kidz” collection at my high school reunion</a> last summer. She and her husband decided to travel to Dominica during early April to spend her spring break from the school where she works. Their daughter came along, too.
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On their first day, I gave them a quick tour of our village, including the beach, the bat cave, the views from the surrounding hills. We proceeded to drive around the north of the island, seeing various sights such as the location of the cliff-jumping scene from Pirates of the Caribbean. Then we went climbing up a long mountain before crossing the rim into the crater of an old volcano. We stopped in the middle to explore the sulfurous springs known as the Cold Soufriere—a remnant from when it was an active volcano. It was a good way to welcome them to the island.
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On Monday, they came to visit my school and meet the students. The photo above shows my classmate with a couple of my students under the “Welcome” sign that I had painted on the bus stop. Their daughter, who had just graduated from college in three and a half years, had played soccer throughout her life. She had a good time playing “football” with our students on the playing field. I also took her across the road to climb the cliff and venture out on <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/10/lislette.html">L'islette</a>. The picture below shows me in my school clothes climbing up the rock wall, with her waiting on me at the top.
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The fantastic thing about this vacation was that they made it a “mission trip” of sorts. They brought a lot of school supplies to help my students. Plus, they also brought me some great things, such as a Kentucky Derby souvenir t-shirt from their home state, as well as her fabulous home-made no bake cookies (in a nice plastic container that has already proven useful in my kitchen). The picture below shows my classmate and her daughter passing out some “goodies” to the students at our morning assembly.
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Even more valuable than the school supplies was the soccer equipment they were able to donate. Because their children had long been involved with soccer, they had some connections that allowed them to get a good deal on new shoes, shorts, balls, and other items for our school's team. The boys were especially amazed at the fantastic (and colorful) shoes! These were absolutely amazing gifts for these children.
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But that was not the end of their generosity. In fact, it was only the beginning. The next day, they paid to take our sixth graders, the sixth grade teacher, and a parent (along with me) on a chartered sailing trip. We used <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/02/sailing-with-sophia.html">the same boat on which I took a cruise previously</a>, and arranged to get all the necessary permissions. Sixth grade trips (or whatever your last year is in primary school) is a common practice in America, so it was nice to be able to do it here. It was quite a memorable day for our four sixth grade students. All their lives they have gazed at visiting yachts sitting in the bay or cruising at sea. On this day, they were able to see what the opposite view was like, sailing on the beautiful blue Caribbean and gazing back at the mountains of their verdant island home.
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Just to give you an example of how new this experience was to my students (shown above), they had never swam off a boat or in deep water before. The only times they had ever been swimming was when they walked into the surf of the ocean (on our beach and on others). There had always been a gradual deepening as they walked into the water. However, when the sailboat dropped anchor in Toucarie Bay, the only was to swim was to jump off (or step off) the back of the boat, with absolutely no ability to “touch” the bottom. It required some adjustment for them to realize that swimming would mean never touching the bottom. Eventually, all of them entered the water and went swimming—just one of the many new experiences they enjoyed that day (they also got to taste the no bake cookies that had been brought down for me, as I shared mine that day so they could taste an American delicacy).
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They also learned about sailing that day, and the boys especially enjoyed seeing how the sailboat worked, and actually got to “drive” it. The three girls spent a lot of “girl time” together (as shown above), which was very good for each of them. The adults all had a good time mingling around as well. It was a great chance to learn about each other, and to realize how much in common we all have, regardless of country. The picture below shows our teacher sitting with our benefactor as he holds the Dominican flag.
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On Wednesday, I took the day off to accompany them on a whale watching tour from the capital. Only recently had I seen my first whales off the coastline of my village, but this adventure would be taking a large catamaran a good ways off the coast to see whales up close.
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Before boarding the ship, there is a large display area explaining all about whales. It includes a complete skeleton of a sperm whale, the largest toothed whale and the most commonly found whale species here. While admiring the hanging skeleton, I discovered that it had come from my village! I had heard tales about the dead whale that had washed ashore in 2001, but didn't know that it had been the source for the skeleton that thousands of tourists view each year. They even had an original newspaper article about the dead whale, including quotes about the discovery from one of my friends in the village. Upon my return, I was able to tell him he is a celebrity with all the tourists who read that sign.
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Once on board the ship, we motored a long way from shore before finally seeing some water spouts from surfacing whales. We focused on two of them who eventually came together, side by side, before the first one flipped up its tail to dive deep for food. The second one soon did the same. It was a rare sight that I will long treasure.
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As we headed back to shore, dolphins would intermittently join with our ship, racing and jumping beside and ahead of us. It was quite fun to watch, and was a nice ending to our whale encounter.
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Except, this wasn't the end. They took me out to lobster dinner on our back home. I had expected their generosity for my students, but I was overwhelmed by their generosity towards me. I am truly blessed, and it demonstrates that the more you give, the more you get. Thank you so much!
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On Friday, they came back to our school for one more afternoon with the students. This time, the students got a little bit of an education about aerial drones. It was amazing to watch it fly above us. Below is a picture that it took, showing the school in the lower left corner.
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The drone wasn't the only surprise that took pictures. Their daughter also brought along her Polaroid instant camera. The children were mesmerized to see it slowly printing and ejecting a completed picture shortly after it was snapped. It seemed almost magical to them!
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All in all, their visit was an incredibly positive experience for my school. Many amazing memories (and indeed, friendships) were made that my children will long remember! Plus, it was one of my most memorable weeks on the island, as I enjoyed playing tour guide (and being the beneficiary of some great food and experiences). I hope it was as good a visit for them as it was for us. I'm glad they made it their “mission” to come see “the Nature Island” for themselves. Thank you, thank you, thank you!WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-42945926261652059062017-03-27T17:08:00.000-07:002017-03-27T17:08:11.427-07:00Planets (plus a motorcycle)I completed a pet project today which was meant to broaden the minds of my students. When you live on a small island, it isn't easy to grasp just how large things such as the solar system really are. So I came up with a way to convey the size and the layout of our solar system for our school. This little project would teach science as well as mathematics.
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We have a concrete driveway that led to the old school which was torn down several years ago. I recently took a meter stick and carefully measured the entire length of this driveway, from the blacktop of the main road where it connects to the end of the concrete. I found it to be 63 meters long. Within this length, the entire solar system would be represented.
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Now I know that many of you, like me, learned when we were young that we have nine planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. However, Neil deGrasse Tyson and others in the International Astronomical Union (IAU) led a movement in 2006 to remove planetary status from Pluto, which is just one of several large icy objects beyond Neptune. Pluto (along with others, including an even larger icy object further out named Eris that was discovered just prior to the IAU decision) has been demoted to a new classification known as dwarf planets.
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Thus, I only needed to fit eight planets into the 63 meter length of our driveway. Neptune automatically would be at the end of the driveway, while the sun would be the blacktop of the main road where the concrete driveway begins. Since Neptune is 2.8 billion miles away, we needed to divide 2800 into 63 to determine that every 2.25 centimeters equaled one million miles. By doing these calculations, the students got to see how mathematics can be used in real life situations. [Yes, I mixed miles with meters, since we have a nice meter stick, but it just wasn't essential to do this exercise entirely in metric numbers. Besides, much of life in Dominica involves a mix of English and metric systems.]
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By researching the distance the other planets are from the sun, and then multiplying each million by 2.25, we could determine where they would be placed along the length of the driveway. Today, the older students helped me during lunch to lay out the planetary locations using the meter stick and chalk on the driveway. Then, we got out some paint, and permanently painted these locations on the driveway (as shown above and below this paragraph). The “artist” in me wanted to do all the painting, but I realized it was important that the students feel some ownership for this project, so I let them do nearly all of the painting.
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Seeing how close the four inner planets are to each other (as well as to the sun) gives the students a better feel for the great distances to the outer planets. Mercury is about 80 centimeters away from the sun, while Mars is about 3.2 meters away. Earth is almost 2.1 meters from the sun in our model, but in reality the Earth is 93 million miles from the sun. [By the way, to keep things simple, I didn't try to represent the relative sizes of the planets—it was enough merely to demonstrate the distances between their orbits. Besides, the inner planets would just be tiny dots on this scale.]
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After we were done, the students each picked a planetary orbital distance to stand beside, and their teacher stood way in the back where Neptune is represented. I then took the picture shown below from across the road. Their teacher is hard to see, but she is there wearing a light blue blouse. [Note that the student on Venus stepped back to look towards his teacher when I snapped this picture, inadvertently making him too close to Mercury and too far from Earth.]
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I'm glad to have completed this project for our school. It helped me to connect with my days working at NASA, and hopefully it helps to expand the minds of my students.
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After school was over, I had one more little project today. One of our younger children recently got a bike for his birthday. I decided to show him how he could turn his bicycle into a “motorcycle.”
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When I was a kid, sometimes we would affix cardboard playing cards to our bicycle fender struts using a clothespin. The card would flip through the spokes as the wheel rotated, providing a motorcycle sound as we rode along. I decided to pass along this trick to the children here.
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The picture below shows two of the kids enjoying the new sound effect. Note that I had turned the bicycle upside down to make it easier to work on. Without a convenient fender strut, I wasn't sure how I was going to affix the playing card. However, the kickstand (mounted on the rear axle) was thin enough to allow a clothespin to hold the card.
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It was a trip down memory lane for me to hear that fluttering sound again! It was even better to see the smiles it put on the childrens' faces! They loved it!
WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-9667316290872771712017-03-25T03:45:00.000-07:002017-03-25T03:45:35.463-07:00Thank you, Darien!As a Peace Corps Volunteer, you are always looking out for ways to help your community. So when I heard about a small charity that specializes in sending boxes of books to Peace Corps Volunteers, I immediately submitted my request. That charity is located in the town of Darien, Connecticut.
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Darien Book Aid was founded in May of 1949 when Mrs. Gordon Lamont of Darien conceived the idea of sending good reading material to share the American way of life with war-torn Europe. She gathered some of her friends together, which then led to getting the help of Ambassador John Davis Lodge (as well as other government officials). Finally, generous contributions from Darien residents helped to start this charity that continues nearly 70 years later.
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Book collection containers were placed in stores, schools, and churches in Darien. The Red Cross, school children, and the Kiwanis Club helped with the collections. For many years, they enjoyed financial support from the government -- first from the State Department and then from the Peace Corps. Because of budget cuts over the years, today they have no government or other organization affiliation. <a href="http://www.darienbookaid.org">Darien Book Aid</a> depends solely on private contributions to gather reading materials and pay all their shipping costs.
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When I arrived in St. Lucia for my initial training in June of 2015, I met a woman from Connecticut named Brie. We have kept in touch via Facebook, and I took notice when she posted that she had went to Darien in January to help this charity. As it turns out, she was working the day my box was packed, although she did not pack my box. However, she did agree to write up her experience so that I could share with you how the process works on the American end. Here is her half of the story:
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“A fellow Connecticut Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV—those Peace Corps Volunteers who have completed their service and are now back in the USA), Jillian, organized the activity of our group to pack boxes of books for Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) across the world. I drove nearly two hours from my home to participate in what I felt was going to be a worthwhile activity. I had never done anything like it so I was looking forward to meeting more RPCVs as well as giving back. I was conflicted about the particular day since it was on the same day as the Women's March on Washington (and sister cities). I had wanted to do both events but the book aid project was my way of putting good into the world. I was there in spirit with family and friends who protested.
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The experience of packing books, which seems like a small thing to do, was immensely rewarding and exciting. I was shown around the library of donated books, the bin of requests from PCVs, the paperwork we put in each box that gives it a personal touch, how to pack a box, and so on. We got to choose which request we filled so I chose Albania and Philippines.
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I absolutely loved reading about the PCV, their needs, and the audience for which I was to select books. I adore books and I'm an avid reader which made it more special. I included books from Fancy Nancy to Huckleberry Finn to books about the US to ESL (English as a Second Language) type books/workbooks. I had different demographics: age and learning level. I filled orders that desired award winning to basic reading to non-fiction.
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What struck me was the needs of the communities; one of them only had material as recent as 1991. I felt a huge responsibility to send the best and "right" books as they may be the only ones they have for a very long time. I took a lot of time choosing my books pouring over them carefully. Thankfully, I was reassured that it was ok. It was about quality not quantity.
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As I mentioned, each of us wrote a note to go along with the box of books which I felt was such a loving touch. I knew the excitement each PCV would feel when they received their box; then be able to share with the communities they serve. Then to think about the joy each student, child and adult, would get was almost overwhelming. The library was full of high energy, love, and camaraderie. I was on cloud nine after the event! Several of us went to lunch afterward and bonded further as we discussed our service in Peace Corps. I made new friends that day!
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The icing on the cake was learning my friend and fellow Eastern Caribbean volunteer, David Kurtz, was one of the recipients of the books. Hats off to Darien Book Aid who collects books, fundraises, and ships at roughly $100.00 USD per box to PCVs.”</i>
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Thus, the box bound for my village was packed at Darien on Saturday, January 21. On Friday, March 17, I stopped at our village post office on my way home and discovered that the box had finally arrived nearly two months later (and with no damages). I hurriedly retraced my path to the school, carrying the box on top of my head as the local residents typically do. [This is a new skill I'm working on developing, as I sometimes carry my laundry basket and other bulky items on my head (although I am not a true Dominican, because I am not talented enough to carry such items on my head without using my hands).]
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Since school had dismissed over an hour earlier, there were just three students still around, but they eagerly joined me to see what was inside the box. They were as excited as I was when we started pulling out the new (gently used) books and magazines. The picture above shows them engrossed in the newly arrived books.
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On Monday morning, I processed the 24 books and 8 magazines into our small library. In the past, I have had to write an inscription in the front of each donated book noting the date and the donor. However, I was able to get a stamp made in the USA for the principal to use, so now I use her stamp on any new books. As the picture above shows, the folks at Darien also have a stamp of their own, so I simply positioned mine above their existing stamp.
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After stamping the inside page of each book, I then must affix a colored dot to the spine to denote whether the book is for beginner, intermediate, or advanced readers. Non-fiction books get a white stripe added to their dot for easier sorting and placement. Finally, a layer of transparent tape goes over the dot to keep it in place. All of this process (and more) is described in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/11/hands-across-sea.html">my previous story about the good folks at the Hands Across the Sea charity</a>.
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Obviously, this wasn't nearly as many new books as what Hands Across the Sea has sent me each fall. However, we are always grateful for whatever donations we can get for our little school. Since there were not all that many books, it didn't make sense to do <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/11/book-fair.html">a big book fair</a> as we had organized back in November (book fairs are virtually unheard of here). However, I did use one of our new picnic tables to display all the new books after they had been processed (as shown above). When the lunch bell rang, the children came out to see these new books for the first time. The picture below shows a couple of students reading the books after the initial crowd died down.
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In closing this story, I thought I would share with you a picture (shown below) of the correspondence included in the box from the woman who packed it that day. To the surprise of no one who knows me, you can see that part of my request was for my personal favorite—non-fiction books. I am grateful for some of these small, heretofore unknown to me, charities that have supported my efforts in Dominica, such as Darien Book Aid, Hands Across the Sea, and <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">Courts For Kids</a>.
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<b>P.S. I just had to share with all my readers that Friday night, March 24, was very special to me. I had purchased a barbecued chicken (leg and thigh) for dinner and had taken it down to the shoreline to eat while watching the waves. Another local joined me there, and we had a pleasant conversation. While we were talking, we noticed huge splashes, forceful spouts, and even large black bodies as a pod of whales breached the surface off our coast. I'm not share if they were feeding, playing, or something else, but this was the first time that I had ever seen whales! Unfortunately, it was at dusk so the light was not good for taking pictures (plus the distance was too great for the camera on my phone to get clear pictures). I'm glad I had a local witness to verify the amazing sight that I was seeing! I will long treasure that experience! </b>WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1973107187403353113.post-58333221793439810442017-03-19T04:04:00.000-07:002017-03-19T04:04:43.370-07:00An Epic BattleThere were two big events this past week at my school. After qualifying in the regional competition last month, the football (soccer) team traveled to Castle Bruce on Thursday for the next level of the primary school tournament. While I understand we won some games there, we unfortunately did not qualify for the next stage. This is the same situation we found ourselves in last year. Oh well!
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This story is not about an epic battle on the football field. It is about an academic battle between two primary school intellectual heavyweights from vastly different backgrounds, who fought valiantly until only one prevailed. In these two contestants, one can see them as a representation of the battle that many of us around the world face. But before describing this battle, let me describe the whole day.
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I did not go with the football team this year, because I had accompanied the footballers to Castle Bruce last year. This year, I opted to help chaperone those children going to the French Festival held on Wednesday at a school near the capital so that I could get a different experience. I'm glad I did.
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Various schools from across the island convene at a school so large that it has a separate auditorium. Several officials from organizations such as the Ministry of Education gave opening remarks. There was a parade of flags for all Francophonie countries (places that have some sort of French influence). A number of these countries are similar to Dominica—our official language is English, and we were a British colony prior to independence, but the local Creole language is related to French, and at times prior to the end of the 1700s, Dominica belonged to the French. That is apparently enough for the French to lay claim to us.
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Our school was assigned to do a display about St. Lucia, another Caribbean island with a similar background as Dominica. The French island of Martinique (which is definitely French) lies between Dominica and St. Lucia, but both of us were primarily controlled by the British. I was a bit surprised that we were working on a display for an English-speaking country for the French Festival, but that is just how it worked out.
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We (meaning the staff with some involvement from the students) did a lot of work for our display (our first grade teacher pictured above is also the French teacher for the upper grades). We created a paper-mache rendition of St. Lucia's most famous landmark, the twin volcanic spires known as Petit Piton and Gros Piton (<a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2015/07/mountaineering-island-version.html">read about my grueling hike to the top of Gros Piton in 2015
</a>). A couple of the Seamester college students who are artists were enlisted <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-second-sea-mester.html">during their one-day visit</a> earlier in the month to help create the background for a diorama.
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One of the teachers (shown above) created a doll dressed in traditional St. Lucian clothing. One of the parents prepared a nice plate of fig and saltfish, a common meal there (as well as in Dominica). I drew a St. Lucian flag furling in the breeze, created a freehand map of the rugged coastline (and cut it out), painted the diorama (except for the background), and did lots of calligraphy for our signs. I think it all came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.
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However, the last and biggest event of the day was the French spelling competition (that is the official program shown above). Students who are selected to represent their school are given a list in advance of nearly 500 French words to memorize, and they must spell them while designating the proper accent marks. Needless to say, it is a lot more difficult than a traditional spelling bee.
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Our little school is so small (just 34 students) that we had no sixth graders last year. Thus, our top fifth grade girl competed last year. This year, she was back again as a sixth grader. She did an excellent job as one by one, the other competitors were eliminated until only two remained—our girl from a small “country school” in the far northern corner of the island (with overall substandard test scores causing some to look down on us), and a local boy from this large, successful city school that has been hosting this major event over the years. As a native of rural West Virginia, I could really identify with this match-up! Indeed, it is the essence of a classic struggle faced by many people throughout the world.
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The two of them (pictured above with him sitting as she provided an answer--the official reading the words was standing just out of the frame on the left) went back and forth for several rounds as the tension built (now I know how my parents felt when they came to watch some of <a href="http://inquisineer.blogspot.com/2013/09/college-bowl-uc-and-me.html">my College Bowl competitions</a>). Each time I was so nervous before she gave her answers, and then so excited after she answered successfully. To put it in sports terms, could our girl actually pull off this “Cinderella story” upset of the host school favorite?
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Alas, there would be no Disney movie ending to this story. She finally got tripped up by a word, giving the victory to the boy who goes to school where the event was held. However, she was awarded a nice trophy and gift bag of school supplies for second place. In the photo above, the winner is on the left, with second through fifth--there must have been a tie for fifth--arrayed in sequential order towards the right (note that only the top three got trophies and the bigger gift bags).
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I'm so proud because she conducted herself with such poise, such grace, such brains—she truly is an incredible young woman (she is the same student who wrote the <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2016/05/love-letters-in-sand.html">message in the sand to me in this blog story</a>). Personally, I'm okay with how it ended—I was getting so wrapped up in the “underdog wins” storyline that I probably would have cried tears of joy for her, and the kids didn't need to see a grown man get emotional like that!
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Afterwards, we took the students over to the KFC (which I had done last year with the football team). This is the only American restaurant on the island, and is very popular throughout the Caribbean. Just like last year after leaving Castle Bruce, I bought a bucket of chicken for everyone to share, and french fries for all the students. Above is a picture of a few of them standing by our bus enjoying their KFC treat (I think they were going for a "gangsta" pose). Then as we were leaving town, we stopped at a convenience store and I purchased ice cream for everyone. Those two stops cost me over a hundred dollars, but it was worth every penny. They are all good children, and it had been another memorable day on this beautiful island.
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<i>P.S. I just wanted to urge my readers to donate towards building a playing court for my village, as part of the matching funds to the grant I won (described in <a href="http://kuribbean.blogspot.com/2017/01/your-chance-to-help.html">this previous story</a>).
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For anyone leery of donating via a website using your credit card (the instructions for the electronic donation process can be found in the link above), it is also possible to donate the old fashioned way. You can mail a check to Courts for Kids, and just note “Thibaud, Dominica community court” in the memo line. Make the check out to “Courts for Kids” and mail it to: <P>
<b>Courts for Kids <BR>
PO Box 873786 <BR>
Vancouver, WA 98687 <P></b>
Thank you for at least considering a donation, whether electronically or by check! It will make a big difference for my students and others in the village.
</i>
WVramblerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04725938160516615577noreply@blogger.com0